Home for the Holidays
by Kittenshift17
Summary: There's nothing like coming home for the holidays. For Hermione, having Charlie home for the holidays this year might just be the perfect time for her to finally make her move on the handsome Dragon Tamer. But, as with any family, drama is lurking just around the corner. Hermione just has to figure out if it'll make or break her chances at becoming the future Mrs Charles Weasley.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **I couldn't resist a little Charmione novella for the 2018 holiday season. I hope you like it. I've been having a lot of fun writing this one. It's almost complete in draft, so I'm hoping for some daily updates over the next couple of days until it's completely posted (you say, "Yaaaay!"). Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year, everyone. I hope 2018 has been good to you.**

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter One**

* * *

The kitchen door of the Burrow blasted open with a bang, a gust of blizzarding wind tearing through the warm house in an instant to reveal a strapping, hooded figure stomping the snow from his boots on the step. The adults inhabiting the kitchen of the Weasley family home all trained their wands surreptitiously on the figure in their surprise before the sound of a gleeful shout rent the air.

"UNCLE CHARLIE!" Victoire Weasley and Teddy Lupin both shouted in delight, the pair of them barreling toward the wizard as he stepped out of the cold and into the warm kitchen.

Charlie Weasley looked up, grinning. His hood fell back to reveal his gleaming red hair and freckled face just in time for the two children to crash into him. He stooped to pick both of them up, holding each child with one arm and lifting them from the ground despite their being eight and nine years old and hardly small enough for being carried around with ease.

"Happy Christmas, you pair of little blighters!" Charlie crowed to the children as they both cuddled into his embrace.

"Oh, Charlie, you're home!" Molly Weasley said happily, bustling over to her son intent on stealing the next hug from him just as soon as he'd finished cuddling the boisterous children.

Hermione Granger tucked her wand back into her pocket quickly, the temperature in the room spiking at least twenty degrees as she laid eyes on Charles Weasley. When no one else complained of suddenly being incredibly warm, she began to suspect the temperature spike might be localized to her knickers.

Galloping Gargoyles, but the man was a delight to the senses!

"Go on, now," Charlie was saying to the children after hugging them both. "Off with you and play. You'll get your presents later, yeah?"

"You got us presents?" Teddy asked excitedly, bouncing up and down as his hair wildly shifted through the colors of the rainbow in his excitement.

"What do you take me for, kid? Some heathen? Of course, there's a few presents tucked away in these pockets of mine for my favourite pair of rascals."

Teddy and Victoire both began to cheer and dance happily, shuffled out of the way as they were by Molly when she moved in to hug her second son.

"Howdy, Mum," Charlie said, his easy smile seeming to light up the room. "Happy Christmas, yeah?"

"Happy Christmas, darling. Oh, it was getting so late, I'd begun to worry," Molly fussed, hugging the man close before pulling back to peer into his face.

"Yeah, got a bit stuck coming through Customs, you know?" Charlie shrugged easily, not at all concerned by the late hour or the time it had taken to get himself home for the holidays.

Hermione looked on from across the room where she'd been fixing herself a drink while the rest of Charlie's family came forward to wrap him into back-slapping brotherly hugs, following stern handshakes for all. She waited patiently, drinking in the sight of him and trying to keep from having anyone spot the fact that she was beginning to squirm in her rapidly dampening knickers. Merlin, but the Dragon Tamer got handsomer with age, she was sure.

"Ickle Ronniekins," Charlie smirked when Ron strolled in and shook his elder brother's hand.

Hermione stayed quiet in the corner.

"Still calling me that, Charlie Bear?" Ron smiled good-naturedly, not at all rising to the bait of the childhood nickname his siblings had given him.

"Always will, little brother. How've you been?" Charlie grinned, though Hermione noticed the way his wild eyes bounced from Ron to Fred, to George, to her, then to his mother and then over to the hulking figure of a wizard just entering the kitchen.

"Good," Ron nodded. "I've been really good, Charlie. And you?"

"Living the high life, my friend," Charlie shrugged his muscled shoulders, beginning to wriggle out of his cloak when the warmth of the kitchen began to heat his chilled form.

Hermione bit her lip as he stripped down to only his jeans, dragon-hide books, and what looked like last year's Christmas sweater from his mother. It was green with a Chinese Fireball knitted on the front of it.

"Hey, listen, there's someone I want you to meet, Charlie. You know, officially," Ron said a little awkwardly when Fred and George exchanged grins and obviously wanted to pounce on their elder brother with questions about his 'high life'.

"Oh, yeah?" Charlie asked, and Hermione noticed the way his eyes darted to her in the corner again.

When he caught her watching him, he shot her a crooked grin and a shrug, making her think he had every intention of coming over to give her a hug just as soon as Ron sorted himself out. Hermione smiled gently in return before lifting her glass of wine to her lips and sipping.

"Yeah," Ron said, looking over his shoulder as a hulking wizard approached him from behind. "This is Greg. Greg, this is my brother Charlie."

"Goyle?" Charlie asked, surprising the lot of them that he knew who it was.

"That's me," Goyle nodded, his head. "Nice to officially meet you."

He held out his hand for Charlie to shake and Hermione held her breath, wondering if Charlie would make the connection yet that he was being introduced to Ron's boyfriend.

"Uh, you too, mate," Charlie said, looking slightly confused but doing the polite thing and shaking Goyle's hand just the same.

"Blimey, what a lot of fuss," Fred rolled his eyes when the handshake ended, and Ron stood their awkwardly, obviously at a loss of what to say next. Hermione could tell he'd been expecting to have to fight with Charlie as he'd fought with Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, and George when he'd introduced Goyle to them as his latest love interest.

"Right," Charlie chuckled. "I think I need a drink, yeah?"

Ron frowned at his brother, but he didn't say anything as Charlie moved past him.

"Hullo, Hermione," Charlie said as he moved around his brothers and crossed the kitchen toward her.

"Hi, Charlie," Hermione said, hating that her voice came out huskier than she'd intended.

Before she could worry about blushing or trying to clear her throat, Charlie stooped a little and curled his arms around her waist, lifting her right off her feet and into a bone-crushing hug. She smiled against his shoulder, burrowing her face into his neck and breathing him in as she hugged him back. He smelled of smoke, and the outdoors, and of dragons. Hermione closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of his strong arms around her, holding her a foot off the floor with apparent ease.

"Happy Christmas, yeah?" he said when he let her down a minute later – much too soon for her liking.

"And to you," she smiled, her eyes dancing over his freckled face and drinking in the wicked little grin he shot her before he looked over his shoulder when George nudged him and handed him a glass of eggnog.

They didn't exchange any further small-talk before Charlie was swept away by his family into the living room, but the warmth of his body and the tingle of his touch after having been pressed against her so intimately for just a minute had left Hermione flushed and hungry for more.

Merlin, she needed to get her crush on the man under control. He'd never looked at her sideways, from what she could tell. He'd always thought of her as Ron's friend, and then Ron's girlfriend, and she didn't think he would ever think of her as anything other than a friend of the family. The last thing she needed was to make an arse of herself by attempting to flirt with the man or too obviously lusting after him.

She topped up her wine glass before strolling into the living room where Charlie had been pushed into an armchair by the fire – no doubt by his mother who was fussing over him having been out in the blizzard raging beyond the safety of the Burrow that chilly Christmas Eve. Already, Teddy and Victoire had claimed Charlie's lap as the perfect spot for them to sit and listen to him regale them all with tales of why he'd been late.

Hermione leaned her shoulder against the arched doorway between the living room and the kitchen, looking on greedily as he bounced his niece on his knee.

"What kept you?" Arthur asked of his son, pulling his wife down to sit on the couch when she kept trying to fuss with Charlie's hair and worrying that he wasn't warm enough.

"A few of the dragons wanted to share their holiday cheer with me," Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "Had a pair of Ironbellies giving us some grief just before I was set to head out, and we had to get the fight broken up and the wounds patched over before I could get away."

"Were you hurt, darling?" Molly frowned.

Charlie shook his head. "Nah, I'm alright, Mum," he said, but from the way he didn't meet the woman's gaze, Hermione could tell he was lying.

"What were they fighting about, Uncle Charlie?" Victoire asked, wriggling on his lap and completely enraptured by her uncle's tale.

"Just a squabble over territory, Vic," Charlie shrugged. "They're pretty fierce, those Ironbellies, and they don't like sharing their turf. The weather over there isn't much better than it is here, and one of the younger drakes thought he'd hole up in a cave on the mountainside to avoid the worst of it, see? Only the cave was already occupied by a big old mean drake we call Krampus. He's not real friendly, old Krampus, and he wasn't too keen on some young bloke invading his cave. They got into it pretty bad, but the young gun held his own."

"Did you have to wrestle them, Uncle Charlie?" Teddy asked, hanging on Charlie's every word.

Charlie grinned.

"I usually try to stay away from old Krampus," he admitted. "He was a people-eater, back in the day when he was first relocated to the Sanctuary. He was picked up near Mykolaiv in the Ukraine after he'd been destroying villages and eating all the muggles who lived there."

"Does he bite?" Victoire asked.

Charlie laughed.

"They're dragons, Vic," he smiled patiently. "They all bite."

"Oh," the little girl said, frowning.

"Anyway, old Krampus hasn't given us much grief since we got him sorted out about fifteen years ago, but I wasn't real keen on getting too close to the bloke, eh?" Charlie shook his head. "'Course, when he got the young gun in his jaws and started trying to chew his head off, me and the lads had to get involved."

"You wrestled him?" Teddy asked excitedly.

"Yeah, buddy," Charlie grinned. "He nearly had me, too, old Krampus. Thought he'd be clever and play dead when the young gun kicked him in the head. I pounced on him to restrain him before he could fight back, and the sod almost ate me!"

The children weren't the only ones engaged in the story and Hermione chuckled to herself when a few of the adults gasped in concern for Charlie, too.

"How did you get away?" Teddy wanted to know.

"I'm pretty quick, buddy," Charlie grinned. "I threw myself down right on top of his snout and clung onto one of the horns growing out the top of his head for dear life. You can't bite your own nose, see? You try it."

Hermione giggled when Teddy and Victoire both stuck their lower jaws out, tipping their heads and trying to bite their own noses. She shook her head when she noticed Ron trying it, too.

"Oi!" Ron exclaimed when Goyle leaned over and bit the tip of Ron's nose instead.

Everyone looked over and began to laugh when Goyle pulled back, looking smug.

"Gotcha," he taunted his boyfriend while Ron rubbed the end of his nose, laughing.

"See? Can't get it by yourself, can you?" Charlie chuckled. "One of the safest places to grab hold of a dragon is on his head because he can't bite you from so close. But you've got to be quick, otherwise he'll chomp you right up before you get hold of him."

Teddy and Victoire nodded seriously, obviously appreciating and absorbing the lesson in dragon wrestling. Hermione shook her head once more, smiling to herself as she watched the Dragon Tamer entertain and educate the two young children with no small amount of cluckiness. She was certain her ovaries might burst the longer the looked on, unable to keep from daydreaming of how he might one day look with a son or daughter with her curls and his coloring balanced on his knee or cradled in his arms.

"Whose hungry?" Molly asked sometime later after Charlie finished his story of how they'd subdued the fighting dragons, supposedly unscathed.

"I'm starving," Ron announced, and Hermione giggled when Goyle looked like he could eat an entire feast all to himself, as well. She didn't envy the pair of them their grocery bill, that was certain.

When everyone bustled their way into the kitchen to be seated around the hugely extended dining table – expanded to fit the spouses of the numerous Weasley offspring – Hermione found herself shuffled a little further along from her usual spot. She pressed her legs together under the table when Charlie rested a hand on her shoulder as he lowered himself into the seat beside her. She noticed as he did so that the move was just a little strained, and she began to suspect that though he wasn't walking with a limp, he'd done something to one, or both of his legs during his dragon-fight before coming home.

"You mind if I sit by you, Hermione?" Charlie asked even as he settled himself into his seat.

"Not at all," Hermione smiled, just a little breathless in his presence.

Charlie shot her a wink, releasing her shoulder as he was drawn into conversation with Bill when the eldest Weasley son claimed the seat on Charlie's other side. Leaning back in her own chair on Bill's far side, Fleur made eye contact with Hermione before crossing both her eyes as Charlie and Bill launched into discussion about their professions. Hermione laughed quietly, the half-veela Frenchwoman having grown on her in the eight years since Victoire's birth and following the close living quarters they'd shared when she, Harry and Ron had escaped to Shell Cottage during the war.

She wasn't surprised when the twins sat opposite them. Charlie didn't get home too often, so when he managed it, everyone wanted a chance to catch up with him. She felt almost bad that he'd chosen to sit beside her when so many of his siblings wanted the chance to talk to him, too. Not bad enough to move, of course. She wasn't about to give up such prime real estate when she'd had her eye on Charlie for what felt like years, now.

Ever since she and Ron had come to the conclusion that he was, in fact, bent as a bowtruckle, she'd been single and more than one fine young man had caught her eye. For almost five years, she'd been searching for someone who caught her attention and held it in a romantic or lustful sense and if she was being honest, she hadn't had a lot of luck until Charlie had come home for Christmas four years ago. She'd casually dated a few men, but none of them had been of consequence and since then she'd spent too many nights imagining a future with a man who hadn't ever looked twice at her.

She hated being a statistic, too, and Hermione was thinking that this was the year she was finally going to do something about it. She was tired of window shopping. She wanted to try things on for size. She didn't know what she might have to do to convince Charlie that she was an available and passionate young woman, but she was sure that a conversation or two might be a step in the right direction if she could just wrestle his attention away from his brothers and his parents for a few minutes.

* * *

 **NOTE: I wrote a book! A real one! You can find it on Amazon. Just search "PARANORMAL DIVISION: AWAKENING by Ellie J Duck." I'll adore you forever if you grab a copy today.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2019 is your best year, yet!**

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

* * *

"You want another drink, Hermione?" Charlie asked her hours later when dinner and pudding had been devoured and the children had been put to bed.

Hermione blinked sleepily, having been steadily necking glasses of wine as she reached for a little Dutch courage to try and lure the handsome Dragon Tamer into conversation. Or her bed. Whichever came first, really.

"I'd love one," she confessed with a nod. "Do you need a hand carrying them all?"

Charlie grinned.

"I can levitate them all if you're too tired or don't want to get up, love," he offered.

Hermione smiled, supposing that was true even as she got to her feet. She wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to speak to him alone in the kitchen, even if it was only for a few short minutes while they fixed everyone another round of drinks.

"I'll give you a hand," she said, slipping past him and into the kitchen.

She pointedly ignored the wide smile on Fleur's face and the knowing smirk on Ginny's. Both witches had clued onto her interest in Charlie last year when he'd arrived late, showing up Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve, causing both Hermione and his mother to drink themselves sloshed with worry. She listened to the heavy tread of Charlie's boots as he followed her away from the noise of the living room and into the kitchen.

"So, how've you been, Hermione?" Charlie asked conversationally as he began seeking out various alcohol bottles from the cabinet above the fridge. "How's life been treating you?"

Hermione smiled, accepting the bottles he handed her when he began pulling them out of the cupboard, apparently intent on mixing some kind of potent cocktail for his family.

"Oh, you know. Not too bad," Hermione shrugged. "Though I'm pleased it's finally the holidays."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Are they working you too hard, love?"

Hermione laughed.

"I'm self-employed," she told him. "It's my own fault I'm so frazzled."

"Oh," Charlie frowned. "What are you doing with yourself these days? I think the last time I asked, you were still working for the Ministry?"

"I was," Hermione nodded. "I was pushing papers and handling scientific data and statistical analysis in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures office. But when my supervisor decided to run for a seat on the Wizengamot, his replacement drove me absolutely mad. I hexed the little bitch so badly that she spent three months in St Mungo's when she pushed me too far, one time too often. I quit on the spot before they could sack me. She was still bleeding on the floor at my feet when the head of the department rushed in, panicking. I didn't even give notice, I just left."

"Right on," Charlie grinned. "You'd fit right in on the Dragon reserve in Romania. I knocked out my supervisor's tooth when I was still just a rookie when he almost got me and a fellow rookie roasted alive because he pushed us too hard and threw us into a situation we had no idea how to handle with a rabid Razorscale."

Hermione laughed, relieved to hear it. She'd been a bit embarrassed following her actions when she'd quit, especially since Molly and Arthur had both expressed their disappointment with her for her lack of restraint before she'd told them just what the bitch had asked of her.

"Yes, well," Hermione blushed. "She didn't almost get me killed, but the agenda she was pushing was going to impact almost every magical creature known to wizardkind and she wanted me to fudge my research to get her agenda through. Since it all came to light, she's recovered and she was given the sack, as well. They begged me to come back, but too many of those within the department had been all for her agenda."

"Does this have anything to do with the Bill of Harvest I heard rumors about a while back?" Charlie frowned. "Me and the lads were going to storm the Ministry on dragon-back if that one had gotten through."

"That's the one,"' Hermione nodded. "And they didn't just want to increase the harvest of dragon-parts. They wanted to open it up to all magical creatures, including those considered Being, rather than just Beast. They wanted to harvest werewolves and vampires and veela, alongside house elves and dragons and bowtruckles. Any magical creature not a human-wizard was going to be on the chopping block and I _refused_ to let that happen. Not on my watch."

Charlie smiled at her slowly, his mouth pulling up at the corners when he spotted the way she planted her hands on her hips and huffed indignantly.

"So, what do you do now?" he asked, moving over to dig into the trunk he'd left by the door, producing a few bottles of liquor she was sure she'd never heard of.

Hermione's indignant expression faded away.

"I run an outreach center for magical creatures," she told him. "In addition to veterinarian services for owls, and cats and other familiars, we also help house, employ, feed, and provide legal representation for Beings and Beasts that need help. I brew a monthly batch of Wolfsbane for any werewolf who wants it, and we hold blood drives to keep the vampires fed rather than forcing them to rely on friends and family to feed them, or having their instincts take over and drive them to kill. We help get abused elves out from under cruel masters and offer legal representation for goblins who've been wronged by wizards. We take on litters of Kneazels and Crups when they get away from their owners and breed, finding them all good homes. You name it and if it's a service that helps to benefit magical creatures, we offer it. Since my Foundation is the first of its kind, it's been hectic, but it's worth it every time I see the grateful smile on the face of a vampire child, or the relief on the face of a werewolf whose down on his luck."

"That's amazing," Charlie told her, looking stunned. "And here I was thinking that my work with the lizards was important."

Hermione laughed.

"But it is," Hermione told him. "The work of Dragon Tamers and the vision of the reserves was actually something I emulated for my business plan. For centuries, wizards have come together to protect dragons from hunters, and from being detected by muggles, and from extinction. I wanted to do the same thing on a larger scale for all the creatures and beings that wizards haven't begun to consider 'useful' to our society because their parts can't be used in quite so wide a range of wizarding pursuits."

"So, you save the world, is what you're saying?" Charlie grinned at her.

"I… well… no," Hermione admitted. "If I'm being honest, in the early stages of the Bill of Harvest, I was one of the ones advocating it for that very reason. Typically, if a creature is considered 'useful' to the human population, it will be bred and protected. Look at how we farm sheep, cattle, horses, dogs and cats. Even owls. Creatures that we have use for, we strive to keep, for want of a better word. Early on, when the bill was suggested and before the full extent of their goals were revealed, I thought it was wise. I learned the error of my ways and I've been working tirelessly ever since to undo the damage I did when I didn't immediately nip it in the bud, like I should've."

Charlie smiled gently.

"You're motivated by guilt," he concluded.

"I suppose so," Hermione nodded, biting her lip and looking at her feet, shamefaced.

"But that's not all," Charlie said quietly. "The way your eyes light up when you talk about your work, and the fire in you when you talk about heading off that Bill… helping those creatures is what gets you out of bed every morning, same as me."

Hermione lifted her head, meeting his gaze for a long moment, surprised to see the appreciation and the heat in his eyes as he watched her.

"It is," she agreed quietly, nodding her head.

Charlie nodded too, his eyes searching her face for a long moment before lowering to roam over the rest of her. Hermione felt his gaze like a hot caress and it was all she could do to stand still and keep from quivering or squirming under his attention. She wanted so badly to reach out and close the distance between the two of them.

"Do you like dragons, too?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her when he returned his eyes to his face.

"Of course," Hermione said. "Actually, if you have some time while you're home… I could use a little help regarding something dragon related at the clinic."

"Oh, yeah?" Charlie asked.

Hermione nodded, opening her mouth intent on explaining further, but before she could, Molly Weasley suddenly bustled into the kitchen – probably to find out what was taking them so long.

"Everything alright, dears?" Molly asked, her eyes dancing over them and making Hermione realize that at some point after digging Romanian liquor and what looked a bit like dragon's blood out of his bag, Charlie had crossed the kitchen to stand close enough to her that she had to tip her head back to hold his gaze thanks to their height difference.

"Everything's fine, Mum," Charlie reassured the woman, his eyes leaving Hermione's face to look over at his mother before he took a small step back as though realizing that they were standing intimately and a little inappropriately close together. "Just mixing up a little holiday cheer for everyone, you know?"

Molly narrowed her eyes as Charlie turned his attention to doing just that, beginning to pour together a particularly potent looking cocktail that Hermione suspected was going to knock her socks off. She watched him mix them before stepping a little closer and beginning to copy what he was doing. She was a bit annoyed with Molly for interrupting, but she didn't want to mention the batch of dragon eggs that had been delivered to the clinic in front of Molly. The woman might be one of the kindest people she knew, but she didn't particularly approve of Hermione's business. In particular, she wasn't a fan of the way the profession brought her into contact with so many "dangerous individuals", and she tended to launch into lecturing Hermione about it whenever the topic was mentioned.

"So, how long are you home, Charlie?" Hermione asked, changing the subject when he shot her a sideways glance full of questions.

"Only until the day after New Year," he said. "Got to get back to the lizards. If the weather keeps on like this, I might not even be able to stay that long. Blizzards like this can kill young dragons, and the lads will be struggling to keep them all warm and protected."

"Oh, darling, I'm sure they can do without you for a few days," Molly protested. "You promised you'd be home the entire holiday, this time. And you promised you'd finally start thinking about settling down and finding a nice witch to marry…"

Hermione winced when she noticed the way Charlie's hand balled into a fist at the mention of marriage. She knew it was a sore topic between the Dragon Tamer and his mother. Molly, ever the maternal figure, wanted parenthood for everyone and she didn't appreciate being ignored when she pestered her children about giving her a few more grandchildren.

"Bill and Fleur have got another little one on the way, you know, and I know how close you and your brother are. It would be so nice if the two of you could have children around the same time, so the cousins could grow up together," Molly went on when Charlie didn't answer.

"Might be a bit hard to do when I work in a male-dominated industry and live on a remote dragon reserve in Romania, Mum," Charlie said. "I can hardly go seducing one of the lads into squirting me out a kid in time to catch up with Bill."

"Well, maybe if you spent a little more time around other people besides those same wizards you've been working with for fifteen years, you'd have yourself a girlfriend by now," Molly said snidely, and Hermione suspected the few spiked eggnogs she'd had were going to her head and making her feisty.

Charlie's teeth clenched, and Hermione watched the muscle in his square jaw begin to tick as he continued to fix the cocktails he was crafting.

"Maybe if every time I came home, I wasn't obligated to spend every spare minute in the direct company of blood relatives and their spouses, I might've snagged myself a pretty witch," Charlie countered, and Hermione winced at being dismissed in such a manner.

Her cheeks brightened to pink when Charlie chose that very moment to dart her a look, catching her wince. His brow pulled into a frown for a long moment before he shot her an apologetic half-smile.

"Maybe if you came home more than once a year, we wouldn't feel the need to monopolize your time quite so much," Molly argued hotly, putting her hands on her plump hips and scowling at her son.

"Did you ever think that maybe I'd come home more often if you didn't pester me about getting hitched every time I do?" Charlie growled at the woman, the famous Weasley temper rearing its head.

"Pester?" Molly demanded. "I don't pester! Hermione, would you say that I have a tendency to pester people about their love lives?"

Hermione, having managed to successfully avoid being too close to Molly all evening for the sake of avoiding such pestering, herself, winced at being drawn into the argument.

"Pestering might be too strong a word," Hermione allowed, not wanting to outright tell the woman she was a nagger, but not about to throw Charlie under the bus just to protect Molly's feelings. The matriarch of the Weasley brood had been allowed free reign too long in Hermione's opinion.

"Meaning?" Molly asked, looking affronted.

"Meaning that you do have a tendency to remind your children, their spouses, and even me of what you consider to be the shortcomings in our lives," Hermione informed her quietly. "You ask Charlie every time he comes home just when it is that he's going to settle down into the role of husband and father even though, from what the rest of us can see, the only true love in his life is his dragons and his job. I'm certain that as a mother you don't want consider the idea that any of your children might find themselves lonely or unattached for too long a time, but not everyone is cut out for being married, or having children, Molly. You've asked me several times since Ron and I broke up whether I had my eye on a nice young man, and even tried to set me up with Lee, and then with that chap that Percy works with, and then with Neville. I've given you no indication that I'm looking for a romantic partner."

"But you're currently not seeing anyone," Molly pointed out.

"Maybe she doesn't want to be seeing anyone, Mum," Charlie spoke up, coming to Hermione's defense when Molly eyed her unkindly. "Maybe I don't either. How many times have I told you that the only way I'm getting married or having kids is if some witch comes along who wants to live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by dragons and the lads? We don't all want rugrats swinging from our legs, you know? Some of us have bigger dreams that bringing more hungry mouths into the world."

"Parenthood is a lot more than just feeding a hungry child and having them occasionally be clingy," Molly humphed, crossing her arms over her ample bosom and glaring at the two of them. "I would've thought that having seen Bill raising Victoire would've showed you that, Charles?"

Charlie snorted.

"He writes to me about how he and Fleur never get a full night's sleep, and how they can't do more than grab a quickie during nap-times for the sprog, Mum," Charlie pointed out. "Sleepless nights, accidents, illness, all the responsibilities of keeping a helpless and tiny human being alive. What appeal would there be in that for someone like me?"

Hermione bit her lip, supposing that she might have to permanently put aside her dreams of one day marrying Charlie and starting a family with him if this was how he felt on the topic.

"I don't understand how a man who has devoted his life to the wellbeing of magical creatures – hand rearing more of them than I can count – is so put off by the notion of reproducing," Molly said, frowning at Charlie like he was some kind of puzzle.

"I'm not put off on having them, Mum," Charlie sighed, running a hand through his hair and shooting a frustrated look toward Hermione. "I just… all those things already come with the territory of chasing my lizards, you know? How am I to help be there to soothe a colicky baby in the wee small hours when I'm too busy trying to cure a hiccupping baby dragon at three o'clock in the morning, or wrestling a grumpy old _koroleva_ into holding still long enough to treat her for scale-rot? When am I going to have time to grab even a quickie with my witch when I'm already run off my feet and hardly ever home, eh? What kind of life would that be for whatever poor witch falls for my charms?"

"Then stop working yourself so hard, my boy," Molly said, exasperated.

"I love my job," Charlie argued. "You wouldn't ask Bill to give up Curse Breaking, or Percy to cut back his hours at the Ministry, would you? You wouldn't have the twins slow down productions and sales through their Wheezers franchise, or tell Ron and Ginny to stop playing professional Quidditch. Why do you insist on telling me that my chosen career is no good when it's so specialized a field?"

"Because none of their positions prevent them from interacting with other human beings for weeks at a time," Molly snapped. "You brothers are all married or seeing people. Your sister is engaged. You're the last hold out and I'm worried that if you leave it much longer, you'll regret it. You're not getting any younger, darling."

"I'm only thirty-three, Mum," Charlie sighed, frowning at her. "Hardly ancient given that the average wizard lives to one hundred and fifty or even two hundred."

"You're no average wizard!" Molly hissed. "You insist on continually exposing yourself to dangerous situations, defying death over and over again on the merit of your speed and your wits, alone. Don't think I didn't notice your limp, Charlie. I know you lied about the extent of your injuries after the day's dragon disaster. You might very well not make it to forty!"

Hermione closed her eyes in horror at the very thought.

"And you want to inflict me on some poor witch and a rugrat or two?" Charlie demanded. "So, I could potentially leave them high and dry when I get roasted alive by my lizards? Doomed to widowship and a fatherless existence? Why would I ever want to inflict that on someone?"

"Then quit, Charlie!" Molly said loudly. "Quit chasing those stupid dragons and get yourself a job that will let you be home in the evenings and let you raise a family without fear of losing you every time your leave the blasted house!"

Charlie opened his mouth, intent on letting Molly have it by the look on his face, but before he could say something that would likely ruin Christmas and make the pushy witch cry, Hermione put her hand on his arm. His wild blue eyes darted down to meet her own and he frowned a little, clearly frustrated.

"Is there anything else to go in these drinks, Charlie?" Hermione asked quietly, nodding toward the cocktails.

Charlie glanced at them.

"They need to be set on fire," he said seriously before pulling his wand from the pocket of his jeans and flicking it at the cocktails. " _Incendio_."

The anger simmering through the Dragon Tamer caused the spell to overshoot and scorch Molly's kitchen benches, but Hermione didn't say anything.

"Will you help me carry them to the living room?" she asked, intent on getting him away from his mother before their spat could turn into a full blown row.

"We're not finished this conversation," Molly warned when Charlie nodded and scooped up a tea tray to load the drinks onto.

"We are unless you want to hear exactly what I think of your nagging, Mum," Charlie bit out coldly before stomping away into the living room.

Hermione watched him go, shaking her head to herself and sighing softly.

"I don't nag, do I, Hermione?" Molly asked, frowning after her son when he disappeared from view.

Hermione bit her lip.

"You put pressure on issues that, typically, are already on our minds," Hermione offered quietly. "I'm sure that Charlie is well aware of his bachelor existence, just as I'm aware of my being single. Just as Ginny's aware that the length of her engagement is really beginning to drag on a bit. We all know you mean well, so we tend to grit our teeth and put up with it, but being harped after regarding things we're either quietly unhappy with, or perfectly content with, grows tiresome after a while. Based on his comments, it seems clear to me that being without a partner or children is beginning to weigh on Charlie, but he loves his job too much to give it up and thinks it would be unfair to inflict that kind of life on his family. And he's right. There are very few witches who would happily relocate to the dragon reserve in Romania, and fewer still who would put up with being abandoned to deal with all the hard parts of child-rearing alone while he plays with his dragons. And even fewer who wouldn't worry themselves sick that he might be eaten whenever he's called in to handle something with his dragons. He might be content to live as a bachelor until he's too old to keep up with the lizards; or he might be terribly lonely and finding himself caught between the desire for a family and the desire to keep the job he loves and has worked so hard to keep."

Molly was frowning at her.

"But… if he quit, those issues would be solved," Molly pointed out.

"They would be," Hermione agreed. "But Charlie would be miserable. Would you really want that for him?"

"He'd have a family; he'd be happy," Molly insisted stubbornly.

"He'd go from an adrenaline fueled existence to one of unbearable boredom," Hermione argued. "Can you imagine how dull it would be after wrestling dragons for a living, to suddenly find yourself manning a desk in some stuffy office? He lives to be outdoors, surrounded by magical creatures and doing what he can to help them. He's never going to want to give that up, Molly. Not even when he's a little old sod who can't bend down to pull his own socks on. And I don't blame him. I wouldn't easily give up my job, even with the late nights, the terrible hours, the long days and the full moon stress. Even with the danger that comes along with working so closely with so many magical creatures, I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't trade it for motherhood, no matter my intention to one day have a family of my own. Having you prod me and poke me about doing so makes it hard to enjoy your company in those moments, and I'm sure Charlie feels the same way."

Molly looked highly affronted, and Hermione would bet the alcohol in her system had her spoiling for a fight, so before the other witch could work up a response, she picked up a second tray of the flaming beverages and followed Charlie back into the living room where everyone was still gathered. She noticed immediately that Charlie hadn't returned to his seat, and that he was instead pacing back and forth by the window, his flaming drink in his hand and a scowl on his face. She caught Arthur's eye when she handed him his drink and made a face before nodding toward Molly where she'd begun angrily clearing away pots and pans in the kitchen.

Arthur sighed, tipping his head toward Charlie and raising his eyebrows. Hermione nodded, knowing he was silently asking if his wife had been pestering his son again. Shaking his head, the Weasley patriarch held up his flaming cocktail, though he looked rather apprehensive about drinking it, and cleared his throat loudly.

"It's wonderful to have you all home for the holidays, Weasleys," he announced. "We're blessed to have your delightful spouses, and family friends joining us this evening. Our big family is only getting bigger and I, for one, couldn't be happier. Happy Christmas!"

"Happy Christmas," everyone recited with a cheer.

Hermione shuddered as she scanned the others, trying to figure out how she was supposed to drink her cocktail without burning off her eyebrows. She looked toward Charlie, but he was no help given that he didn't even blow his out before lifting it to his lips and downing it in three long gulps.

"Merlin's beard! What did I just drink?" Arthur asked, his eyes wide as he looked toward his son having emulated Charlie and consumed the drink as quickly as he could. He clutched his chest as though it burned going down and he panted with the effort of drinking the strange concoction.

"A Bloody Firestorm," Charlie informed him. "That bubbling in your gut is the flame-activated dragon's blood that makes up part of the concoction."

"There's blood in this?" Ginny asked, looking horrified.

"Dragon's blood," Charlie nodded. "And it'll knock you on your arse."

Hermione chuckled when he clapped Bill on the shoulder and grinned evilly at his elder brother.

"Good luck remembering to drag yourself out of bed to play Santa Claus tonight," Charlie taunted.

"Charlie!" Ginny protested. "I can't believe you just… Yuck!"

Hermione shook her head at the younger witch when she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and set aside the remainder of her drink.

"It won't kill you, Ginny," Charlie rolled his eyes at his sister.

"Perhaps not," Arthur allowed. "But I feel certain I'm going to need a good night's sleep if I want to drag myself out of bed for the festivities tomorrow. Goodnight, Weasleys."

"Night, Dad," they chimed back to him in dribs and drabs before the man strolled out of the room and collected his fussy wife from the kitchen, coaxing her upstairs with promises of a foot massage.

Charlie shook his head at his complaining siblings when they all suggested that it might be time to turn in as well, all of them tired out from the long day and contented with their full bellies after the evening's meal. Hermione watched Charlie carry his empty cup back into the kitchen to set on the sink before he pulled on his cloak and let himself out of the house. Bill followed her into the kitchen, frowning when he saw Charlie was out in the snow.

"What happened?" he asked of Hermione.

"Your Mum was giving him grief about his job and nagging him to get a move on with having some kids so that they'd grow up alongside your next one," Hermione told him.

"Ah, bloody hell," Bill muttered, raking his hands over his face. "Bet that went down well."

"I had to intervene before he could tell her to stick her meddling up her arse," Hermione replied, shaking her head a little.

"She gave you an earful too, I'd wager?" Bill said after a moment of watching her shrewdly.

Hermione sighed.

"She thought about it," Hermione nodded, polishing off the last of her drink and making a face at the flavor. "I reminded her that pestering us when we might very well be perfectly happy as we are comes across as nagging, and that pointing out hard truths if we're unhappy is just unkind, and I may have walked off before she could reply…"

"Blimey," Bill chuckled. "You let her have it, then?"

"I was polite," Hermione sniffed. "And unfortunately, your mother, though she means well, tends to do more harm than good with her nagging. Someone had to tell her, and if I hadn't, I'm sure Charlie would've, and he'd have been far less polite than I was."

Bill nodded, chuckling a little bit.

"Then I guess I have a question for you, Hermione," Bill said, nodding at his wife when she indicated she was going to head up to bed.

"Hmmm?" Hermione asked.

"Are you going to keep on with this game of watching him from afar and not confessing you're mad for him, or not?" Bill wanted to know.

"Being mad for him and seeing a future for the two of us as a couple are two different things, Bill," Hermione told him quietly, frowning a little but not bothering to be embarrassed that he knew about her crush.

"Why? You daydream of having sprogs with Charlie, yeah?"

Hermione blushed and made a mental note to be careful just what she shared with Fleur in future.

"In the sense that most women daydream of such things starring a man they fancy," Hermione sighed. "But the reality is vastly different. We might have a good deal in common with our passion for magical creatures, but Charlie is dedicated to his dragons and will likely live out his life on the reserve in Romania until he dies in the field when a hungry dragon eats him, or until he's old and can't keep up with the beasts any more. He won't be budged on moving from there, and he made some good points in his argument with your mother about the commitment required for marriage and fatherhood. Currently he believes he would half-arse it, and I think he's correct. What's more, I have my clinic and my foundation to take care of here in Britain. I can hardly just close my doors and pack up my life to move to the reserve with him. The relationship would, at best, be one trialed by long-distance, and at worst, would result in one or the other of us sacrificing our passions to be with each other."

"You wouldn't move over there?" Bill asked.

"I might, if I didn't have my foundation," Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "But even if I did, it wouldn't be much of a life. I thrive on knowledge and learning and challenges. Without proper Dragon Tamer training, I'd be sat on my rear going slowly mental with worry that every time he left the house, he might not make it home. And if, by some miracle, he moved back home, he would go mad with boredom. The daydream is a nice one, I'll admit, filled with happiness and laughter and a good deal of angry-sex to keep things spicy, but the reality is one of impotence and frustration and disappointment, Bill."

Bill sighed, his frown deepening as he glanced out the kitchen window and spotted Charlie in the snow, visible only because he'd apparently lit a pipe or a cigarette and the glow of it burning pinpointed him amid the blizzard.

"Look, I won't lie to you, Hermione," Bill said quietly as all of his siblings and their partners began making their way upstairs to bed. "You and Charlie getting together would be bloody brilliant. Mum would be off both of your backs, and what's more, I think you could make each other happy. I confess that, selfishly, I'd like what Mum wants to be a reality, too. Vic's got Teddy as her companion, but none of the others are looking like breeding the next generation of Weasley's just yet, and in truth, Charlie's always been my favourite brother. I'd like our kids to be close; the best of friends like me and Charlie were growing up. More than that, my brother is lonely, Hermione. He's lonely on that reserve and I reckon it's driving him mad. He loses his temper with Mum because there's a dark and bitter part of him that knows she's right. If he quit, he'd find a witch, settle down, have a family and all that shebang, but he _knows_ he'd be unhappy to leave the life of Taming behind, and he'd take it out on his family.

"And you're no different, love. Every year he comes home, and every year I watch you watch him, and I hope, and I nudge and I try to will the two of you into not being such blockheads and just making a go of things, but it doesn't happen. You've been alone a long while now, and from what Fleur tells me, you've haven't been bothering with dates anymore? You're holding out for Charlie and you're not making a move to claim him."

"How can I?" Hermione frowned at him. "I've just explained why the reality of claiming him would be an ill-fated one."

"So, what then?" Bill asked. "You let go of your crush on him, and he grows angrier, bitterer, and lonelier on the reserve until one day he's just bad enough that he's forced to quit, or he dies there? And you go on, lonely yourself and grower bitter with wasted potential? Come on, Hermione. We didn't all fight a war just to let this hard-won life pass us all by."

"And if we try and it fails?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows. "What then? I'm still welcome here because my breakup with Ron was amicable when he realized he was batting for the other team. If things fell apart with Charlie, they wouldn't be amicable. They would be fiery and ugly and full of resentment. You lot are the only family I've got left. I don't want to lose that when all the evidence points to such a dramatic end. Besides, Charlie's never looked twice at me. It's only ever been wishful thinking that I might catch his eye, let alone his heart."

Bill looked first doubtful, and then disbelieving. Hermione flinched a little when he reached over and squeezed her shoulder gently.

"For a smart girl, that was a pretty silly thing to say, Hermione," Bill told her. "I'm going to go on upstairs and ease whatever aches are plaguing my pregnant wife before playing Santa Claus to my daughter. Why don't you find out for yourself just how effectively you've got your hooks into my brother, eh? And turn the lights off down here when you're done."

He gave her shoulder a final squeeze before striding out of the kitchen and climbing the stairs to the top of the house where Fleur awaited him in bed. Hermione bit her lip, standing in the kitchen and wondering if she should also turn in for the night, or if she should put her cloak on and make the most of a little more time to spend with Charlie. Part of her knew that the most sensible thing to do would be to just take herself off to bed and to put the notion of pursuing anything with Charlie from her mind, but she didn't think she had the strength of will to manage that.

Besides, even if they had no feasible future, Hermione wasn't above pursuing something entirely physical until the fluttering in her stomach every time he came near stopped. Squaring her shoulders, Hermione crossed the kitchen and collected her cloak, scarf and hat, donning them all before letting herself out into the raging blizzard.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: *Did not go into this planning on such whopper chapters***

 ***is having entirely too much fun writing this***

 ***is worried it's going to evolve into something bigger than planned***

 ***was wrong about it being almost completed in draft form***

 ***this chapter changes everything***

 ***why do I do this to myself?***

 ***Shakes head and hands over chapter, hoping for love in return***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

* * *

Charlie looked over at the sound of the door closing, his cigarette held to his lips as he breathed in the toxic smoke greedily. Hermione hadn't been aware that he smoked, and she suspected it was a habit induced by stress. Not that it was a deal-breaker for her.

"It's too cold out here, Hermione," he protested when he saw the way she immediately began to shiver. "Go on back inside, yeah? I'll be just a minute."

Stubbornly, Hermione shook her head, shuffling closer to him. Charlie shook his head at her in return, grinning a little even if he did look somewhat exasperated. Before she could come any closer or worry about having her nose freeze off her face in the bitter wind and driving snow, Charlie dropped his cigarette, snapping his fingers and wandlessly vanishing the butt before he hurried toward her.

"Come on, love. Back inside where it's warm," he said, bundling her up into his arms and shuffling her back into the house. "You barmy, witch?"

Hermione looked over her shoulder at the wizard when they were safely back inside the warm kitchen as he began trying to help her out of her cloak.

"No," she said.

Charlie shook his head, looking like he didn't believe her in the slightest, but he didn't say anything further or embarrass her by asking her why she would risk the blistering cold just to be in his company.

"Did everyone else go to bed?" he asked when they'd both removed their winter clothing.

"I think they were a bit squeamish after that cocktail," Hermione told him honestly, her own stomach feeling a bit funny after ingesting the drink he'd concocted.

Charlie laughed. "Yeah, I'm pleased this place has more than one loo," he said. "They'll be a mess in the morning."

Hermione made a face at him for the mental image, but Charlie just laughed.

"You want a cup of tea before bed?" he offered, poking into the kitchen and tapping his wand against the kettle to bring it to boil.

"That would be lovely," she nodded. "Are you alright?"

Charlie looked over at her darkly as he poured them both a cup of tea and Hermione was pleasantly surprised to notice that he fixed hers just the way she liked it without prompting.

"I'm fine," he said after a few long minutes of silence when he brought her cup of tea to her before going back to collect his trunk from beside the door and carrying it into the living room and over to the heavily decorated Christmas tree in the corner by the fireplace.

"And I'm an elephant," Hermione replied sarcastically as she rolled her eyes, followed him into the living room and settled herself down on the couch.

Charlie shot her a wry grin as he opened his trunk and began unloading a collection of Christmas gifts for everyone, stacking them under the tree alongside the mound of gifts already threatening to overwhelm the limited space.

"Just tired of the same old fight, Hermione," he confessed quietly. "Tired of being caught between the societal norms that Mum wants me to abide by and the incessant intrigue I endure for my dragons."

"You know, there is a way you could have both," Hermione told him, tipping her head to one side before sipping her tea.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked.

"Get the Ministry to open a dragon reserve here in Britain," she suggested. "With Kingsley as Minister at the moment, you'd need only to discuss it with him to get the ball rolling, and the benefits to the magical community, not to mention the boost it would provide to international trade would more than warrant it."

"I've tried in the past to get them to open one here," Charlie sighed, shaking his head.

"While Kingsley was Minister?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

Charlie's mouth twisted, and she could tell he hadn't.

"Unless… you don't want to come home?" Hermione asked. "There's nothing wrong with admitting it if that's the case, Charlie. You have a very large family and sometimes the distance of countries still isn't enough separation."

"Sometimes it's not," Charlie chuckled quietly, closing his trunk again and rising to his feet before he crossed the room to take up the empty seat on the other end of the two-seater couch where she sat. "And other times the next room seems too far."

Hermione smiled gently, completely understanding that feeling.

"Aside from your mother's solution to the problem, what have you considered doing about all this? Do you _want_ a partner and a family?" Hermione asked quietly, supposing it might be too heavy a topic, but needing a straight answer from him on the matter before engaging her plans of seduction.

"Sometimes it's all I want," Charlie whispered, frowning into the teacup he held in his two large hands, making the mug seem small and dainty in comparison. "And other times it's the last thing I want. Half the time a wife and a few sprogs are still sitting in the someday box, you know? A far off goal that I'll put into motion when I've finished growing the hell up, and then another year slips by and all I've got to my name is a qualification in dragon magizoology, enough scars from the lizards to map out an entirely new skin, and a few mates who can say the same."

Hermione nodded slowly, watching him run a hand through his red hair and wondering how she ought to proceed.

"And you?" he asked, looking sideways at her. "You're in the same boat, being unattached, Hermione. What are your plans? Going to conform to society's demand for a husband and two point five children to meet the status quo?"

Hermione nibbled her lip.

"I was thinking at least four, actually," Hermione confessed quietly. "I never managed to undo the memory charms on my parents, and I was very lonely growing up an only-child. When the time comes for beginning a family of my own, I'd like it to be a big one."

Charlie turned his head to look at her more fully and Hermione met his gaze seriously. She'd known for a while that when she got around to children, she wanted a collection of them.

"Yeah?" he asked, raising one eyebrow. "You got your eye on anyone, then?"

Hermione's cheeks warmed.

"Yes," she confessed. "It just so happens that I do."

"Oh," he frowned. "So… what are you waiting for?"

Hermione smiled.

"He's not ready," she shrugged her shoulders. "Half the time, a wife and children are still tucked away in his 'someday box'."

Charlie's eyes danced over her face for a long minute as she repeated his words back to him, wondering if he would click that she was referring to him.

"What if he's never ready?" Charlie asked in a low tone, his voice turning a little hoarse.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders again.

"I've got time," she said softly. "Wizards can live to one hundred and fifty or two hundred, you know? And I'm only twenty-seven. There's plenty of time left for him to finish growing up and begin collecting a few more things to his name than a qualification and some mates in the same field."

Charlie swallowed thickly, his mouth opening a little like he wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure he should. Hermione smiled gently, sipping her tea once more and wondering if maybe Bill had been right, and it had been a silly thing to say that Charlie wasn't interested in her in the slightest.

The silence stretched between them, Charlie opening and closing his mouth several times like she'd actually managed to leave him speechless and Hermione began to wonder if she'd come on a little too strong. Her cheeks warmed the longer he looked at her without saying anything and she bit her lip, looking down at her lap and squinting against the urge to blurt out an apology for being too forward.

"I… got you something," Charlie said after the longest time and Hermione looked up frowning.

"A Christmas gift?" Hermione asked. "I'll open mine tomorrow with everyone else, Charlie."

"No, I mean… I do have one to give you tomorrow, but I got you something else. Something to give you tonight."

"Oh?" Hermione asked, the butterflies in her tummy beginning to riot at the very idea.

"Yeah… uh… In Iceland they have this tradition for Yule where, on Christmas Eve, everyone exchanges books before bed. There's another tradition some people have of exchanging a pair of Yule themed pajamas, and since I know you love days spent lazing about in pajamas, and you adore books… I thought… well… here."

He held out a roughly wrapped package to her and Hermione reached for it automatically, her cheeks glowing with a combination happiness and embarrassment.

"But… I don't have anything to give you in return," she protested, never having been all that good at the gift-giving practice.

Charlie chuckled.

"I saw a present under the tree with my name on it from you," he said, jerking his thumb toward the tree where she'd stashed all of his gifts.

"But that's for tomorrow," Hermione said, holding the gift he'd given her loosely in her hands.

"Just open it," he rolled his eyes. "You're the only person I know who'd enjoy a gift of a tradition like this. And I might've got myself a pair of Yuletide jammies to match."

He returned to his trunk to dig out a pair of flannel pyjamas with dragons in Christmas hats on them. Despite her nervousness, Hermione couldn't help but laugh when he held them up proudly to show them to her.

"Thank you, Charlie," she said sincerely as she began peeling open the paper to reveal the treasure hidden within. She hummed in amusement when she discovered that in addition to wrapping it in Christmas paper, he'd wrapped her book inside the neatly tied pyjamas.

"You didn't lie," she laughed as she untied the flannels. "They really do match. Won't we look a sight at breakfast in the morning?"

Charlie winked at her. "There are a few differences," he told her. "Yours are all girl dragons, and if you look closely, you might notice the festive painting on their claws."

Hermione squinted at the fabric before she began to laugh when she realized he was right.

"Thank you," she said, smiling at him. "I can't wait to wear them."

Charlie just smiled, waiting for her to look at the book he'd given her too.

"Oh, Charlie…" Hermione whispered when she saw he'd given her an encyclopedia of magical creatures that she'd mentioned months ago to Ginny but hadn't gotten around to buying for herself because of the price. "You shouldn't have."

"Traditionally, I should've gotten you a novel you could read into the wee small hours, but I wasn't sure what you'd think of me if I picked you up some bodice ripper about a handsome Dragon Tamer."

Hermione began to laugh, clutching the book to her chest adoringly before setting aside the gifts and the wrappings and reaching for Charlie, shuffling down the length of the couch to curl her arms around his waist. She cuddled into him delightedly, burrowing into his strong chest and enjoying the way he curled those powerfully muscled arms around her in return.

"Thank you so much," Hermione said, her cheek against his chest. "I love the book, and the pyjamas. I've been wanting a copy of this one for months."

"I know," Charlie chuckled. "I _might've_ conned Ginny into doing a little investigating into which book to get you."

Hermione laughed.

"For the record, though," she murmured, listening to the sound of his heartbeat and breathing in the scent of him as he held her snugly in his arms. "I most certainly would not have thought ill of you for a bodice-ripper novel about a Dragon Tamer."

Charlie's low chuckle was wicked and sinful.

"I'll keep that in mind for next year," he said softly, still holding her cuddled into him and seeming uninterested in letting her go any time soon.

Wriggling slightly, Hermione shuffled around until she was better stretched out along the length of the couch without letting him go. Merlin, it'd been a long time since any man had held her in his arms like this. Her stomach was performing a complicated gymnastics routine as the butterflies all fluttered and her heart was racing inside her chest.

"Hey, earlier you were saying something about needing my help at the clinic?" Charlie said after a little while.

He shuffled his shoulders slightly on the couch, making himself more comfortable and seeming perfectly content to hold her cuddled into his arms like they were already lovers, rather than just friends.

"Oh, yes," Hermione said, lifting her head to meet his gaze. "I need your help if you've got some time. We… had an unexpected delivery at the clinic last night right when I was about to lock up. A wizard in a hood ran up to me clutching a crate. I couldn't see inside it at the time, but I thought it might be someone in need of my veterinary service. He never said a word to me though, just shoved the crate into my arms and disapparated before I could ask his name."

"Bloody hell, Hermione," Charlie frowned at her. "Are you alright? He didn't hurt you, did he? What was in the box?"

"He didn't hurt me," Hermione assured him. "But that's where I need your help… Charlie, the crate was full of dragon eggs…"

Charlie's eyes widened in surprise, apparently not having expected that.

"Shit," he said. "How many? Do you know what kind of dragon they're from?"

"There are twelve of them," Hermione said, shaking her head. "But I don't know what breed they are. I've never seen a dragon egg like them before."

"Fuck. Where are they now? What did you do with them?" Charlie asked.

"They're at the clinic," Hermione admitted. "I'm not equipped for treating dragons in the middle of London. I've only ever been called on once by the Ministry to treat a wounded adult dragon, and in that instance, I was summoned to the location where the beast was injured. I did have a woman bring in a dragon egg she'd won in a poker game last year, but it was cracked and the baby inside had already perished before I could save it. When that happened, I did get a special chamber that replicates a dragon nest with heat lights to keep them warm; one of those ones that lets you adjust the temperature based on the breed of dragon and the number of eggs. Not knowing what breed they are, I've had to set it to the average, but I was hoping you'd be able to take a look and see if there is anything extra I need to do to care for them until they can be shipped to a reserve like yours."

Charlie nodded, his face pulled into a serious frown.

"Do you mind if we take a look now?" he asked. "I won't be able to sleep without knowing what breed they are and whether the temperature is set right."

Hermione could tell from the look in his eyes that Charlie was worried about the dragons and she realized in that moment that what he said about his love of them and his obsession with the lizards was true. They really did rule his life and she realized that if she wanted to try things on for size with him, she would have to accept that there would be times when the dragons would come before her on his list of priorities. Right then she wanted nothing more than to stay there on that sofa with his arms curled around her and the heat and strength of his powerful body pressed against her own. But from the way he began to squirm in his seat before rising when she'd moved off him far enough, she could tell he wanted to see the dragon eggs.

"Sure," Hermione said, standing quickly and hurrying for the door. She quickly donned her hat, scarf, gloves and cloak once more and watched Charlie do to same. "Are you ok if we apparate?"

"Might not be too safe in this weather, Hermione," Charlie said, squinting out the window as snow continued to batter against it. "Is your clinic hooked up to the Floo network?"

"No," Hermione confessed. "It would be too easy for people to break into my office and mess with my patients in the clinic if I did that. But my flat above the clinic is connected. We can go there and then take the stairs."

Charlie nodded, and Hermione supposed they wouldn't need their winter clothes. She pinched up some Floo powder and dropped it into the flames, crying out the destination of her living room. When she stepped through the house was dark, but Hermione quickly lit her wand and lighted the lamps she had scattered about the place. She barely had time to flick a quick tidying charm before Charlie followed her through and she would be lying if she said her stomach didn't backflip at the sight of her infatuation dusting the soot from his robes as he straightened to his full and impressive height inside her home.

He looked strange against the backdrop of books, Hermione noted idly.

"You really were made for wide open spaces in foreign countries, rather than cramped London flats, weren't you?" she said without thinking, her tone just a little wistful.

Charlie raised his eyebrows in surprise, clearly focused solely on investigating the dragons, rather than on her flat or her crush.

"City life wouldn't be for me, no," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

Hermione didn't say anything else before leading him over to a door that led to stairs to the lower level. They provided direct access to her clinic, rather than them having to bother with going to street level and entering through the public entrance. Charlie followed behind her and Hermione bit her lip as they entered her lab, still wondering what she should do about her feelings for him. She might've told him she'd be willing to wait until he was ready to consider settling down – though whether he understood that she meant him or not remained to be seen. The trouble was, that while she could certainly wait, she didn't want to give him, or herself, any kind of false hope that something between them could work. Her job kept her here in the heart of London where Beings and Creatures could gain access to her clinic via Diagon and Nocturn Allies. His kept him in the mountain of Romania.

They were from different worlds, and it was clear that he would never comfortably fit into hers in the city.

"Over here," Hermione said, leading him into her private office where she'd had a Dragon Egg Incubator installed. She'd locked it when she'd left, knowing that, technically, she wasn't supposed to keep eggs on the premises without notifying the DRCMC and without getting in touch with a sanctuary to take them.

Charlie clearly knew his way around an incubator because as soon as she'd showed him where it was, he went straight to it and began pushing the buttons that would allow him to view the eggs.

"Can we get a little extra light in here?" he asked in a low voice, squinting through the protective glass at the eggs.

Hermione flicked her wand, lighting up the clinic even though doing so upset the owls she'd been nursing back to health. The four of them hooted and ruffled their feather in annoyance, but Hermione shushed them soothingly, offering them each a treat while Charlie examined the eggs.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Charlie hissed.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, turning toward him in surprise when he began to cuss and started pressing several buttons on the Incubator.

"You said some bloke dropped these off?" he asked, and Hermione frowned when he turned the temperature dial on the incubator all the way down from keeping them warm to freezing.

"Yes. He just appeared. I don't know if he'd been waiting for me to close – though it seems likely, since being in possession of dragon eggs is illegal without a license – and he chose that time because there was no one else around, and because it meant I had to juggle my keys and the crate when he pushed it on me, giving him time to get away. Why?"

"Did you get a look at him?" Charlie asked.

"No," Hermione shook her head. "He had his hood pulled up on his cloak. He was tall, though. Maybe just an inch shorter than you… Dressed in a long black cloak that hid his figure well enough. To be honest, when he stepped out of the shadows, I was caught somewhere between fear of a Dementor attack, and a Death Eater ambush. I nearly hexed him, he startled me so badly."

"I wish you had," Charlie said darkly.

"Why? What's wrong, Charlie? Is it the eggs? Why did you lower the temperature?"

"Because these are Artic Frostfang eggs," Charlie said. "It's lucky you told me about them and we came straight here. They'd have cooked overnight if you'd left them for too long on that temperature."

Hermione gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.

"Aren't Frostfangs endangered?" she whispered.

"Critically so," Charlie said quietly. "Poaching and the melting ice-caps has threatened their existence to near extinction."

"Oh, Merlin! Charlie, I'm sorry. I didn't know. The blue pattern on the eggs made me think of the Swedish Shortsnout, and I set the temperature gauge for them."

"It's fine," Charlie waved away her apology. "You weren't to know. It's an easy mistake to make if you haven't seen a Frostfang egg before, and very few people in the world have."

"How on earth did someone get hold of twelve of them?" Hermione asked, shaking her head. "And what were they doing dumping them here?"

"I'd wager these eggs were pilfered from one of the Highland colonies. Way up North in the Isle of Skye there's a wizard with a license to protect the nesting Frostfangs that have begun migrating there in the summers when the ice melts. Bloody hell, this is bad, Hermione. Frostfangs were the original reason for the last Ice Age, from what we can figure. This blizzard… I knew there was something off about it."

"You think the Frostfangs are causing it?" Hermione said.

"They're _extremely_ territorial about their nests, Hermione," Charlie said. "There's a reason that even though there's an entire colony of Frostfangs calling Skye home, only one bloke is in charge of it. They don't like people, and they can cause international incidents if they lose their tempers. Whatever nest was robbed, the mated pair guarding it are on the hunt. We need to get these eggs back North as soon as possible."

"We can't go now," Hermione said. "It's blowing a gale out there."

"It will only get worse," Charlie told her. "If we don't get these guys back to their parents safely, Britain will be buried in snow and plunged into temperatures so cold, the Frostfangs won't have to worry about the melting polar icecaps anymore. They'll turn the whole bloody world into their playground."

"Well, then what to we do?" Hermione asked. "Why would someone steal them only to bring them to me here at the clinic?"

Charlie frowned fiercely for a moment, looking through the frosting-up glass at the eggs one more time.

"Shit," he muttered. "Tell me you've got forms here somewhere for the application of permits to temporarily host dragons, Hermione?"

"Of course, I do," Hermione said. "Why…? You think someone is trying to set me up to get me closed down?"

"I guarantee it. Grab me one of those forms. I've got all my licenses and registrations. I can sign off on using your clinic as a temporary holding facility for the eggs until we can arrange to get them safely north."

"But… who would want to set me up in this manner?" Hermione asked.

"If I had to guess, I'd say it's one of the folks angry with you for running this foundation. There are a lot of people in the wizarding world who would sooner eradicate the creatures you're trying to save, love."

"But… dragons?"

"Well, going after the Frsotfangs could be two pronged. Some twit probably thought it's be a good way to ensure a white Christmas, this year," he explained. "And someone bloody bastard thought they'd take you down by dumping the eggs on you. Whoever did this knows enough to know that too long away from the nest will plunge us into another ice age. Whoever did this wants you out of the way and has a knowledge of dragons. Probably a trader in dragon parts. There're a few blokes in Britain who're partially responsible for the decline in Frostfang numbers thanks to poaching for the sake of trade. Frostfang teeth and heartstrings are incredibly potent for potion making and wand-making, the scales and hides make some of the most beautiful fashion-items you've ever seen, and the blood of a Frostfang when applied directly to the skin after proper preparation can prevent aging in wizards."

"But why would someone want to pin it on me?" Hermione asked. "I'm well known for my stance _against_ the Bill of Harvest."

"Yeah, but you're also well-known for helping vampires and werewolves, Hermione. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Most would prefer to see those souls slaughtered without mercy and hunted to extinction than help them. And you're luring them in droves to the very heart of the city."

"Well, yes, but how would planting twelve illegal dragons eggs in my clinic prevent that?" Hermione frowned.

Charlie paused in the process of filling out the forms she'd fished out of her desk with all his registration information to lift his eyes to her.

"Hermione, anyone caught in illegal possession of Frostfang eggs can be sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss. Stealing the eggs is considered an act of terrorism because of the consequences to the entire continent. Without this permit I'm filling out, if you'd been raided by the Ministry, they'd have closed you down, raked through every record you've got, pinned everything they could on you and sent you off to Azkaban pending trial before you'd have been found guilty, no matter that this was a setup."

Hermione gulped.

"Oh," she said in a small voice, feeling stupid now for not being more aware of the identifying markers for each species of dragon, and for not being aware of the legal repercussions of such an instance as this. "I didn't know."

Charlie's mouth twisted and his eyes filled with sympathy, seeing how concerned she was when her hands began to shake.

"I know you didn't," he said. "But you told me, and we can get it sorted, yeah? You're alright, _koroleva_ , come here."

He stepped around the desk in her office and pulled her into his arms, smoothing his hands up and down her back comfortingly.

"We'll get to the bottom of who gave them to you, alright? We'll get them returned to their proper nest in the morning, and we'll get Harry and his team to look into who might be targeting your foundation, alright?"

Hermione nodded.

"Gods, I almost cooked them," she muttered, horrified.

Charlie snorted.

"Almost," he nodded, his cheek resting against the top of her head as he held her. "Maybe you'd better look into getting your Dragonologist license, _koroleva_. It was an easy mistake to make, but it's no secret that this neck of the woods could use a few more people interested in dragons and in the know on how to handle them, yeah? Especially if you're already in the magical creature business. There are a stack of registrations and licenses you can get to protect yourself legally in people keep dropping magical creatures in your lap."

"I've got a fair few of them," Hermione told him. "I just didn't look into the more exotic creatures like dragons or the others not native to Britain – manticores and the like – because I didn't think I'd ever have cause to need them."

"Suggesting that whoever is behind this _knew_ you didn't have a license to keep dragons on the premises."

"But I do have a license for that," Hermione said. "I had to get a permit to have the incubator installed."

"Probably a breeders' permit for local species only. Believe me, you've got to be very well qualified to certify having species like the Frostfangs or Razorscales or even the Fireballs in your possession. The circumstances of your application and your request for the incubator would've been processed based on your registration as a local veterinary clinic. They've have allowed it probably only because of who you are, if I'm being honest, love. If you weren't Hermione Granger, even with the magizoologist qualifications for treating magical creatures, you'd have been denied on one of these incubators."

"Kingsley did have to sign off on letting me have it," Hermione nodded slowly. "He called me into his office and made it very official and warned me that even though he knew I wanted it to help the creatures, I would be under scrutiny pertaining to it's use. A chap comes by once a month to inspect the incubator and ascertain if it's been used, and what for."

"Yeah, regulations surrounding dragons are pretty tight, these days," Charlie said, releasing her and holding her at arms-length, his hands resting on the tops of her shoulders as he peered into her face.

"In no small part thanks to you," Hermione said. "To get my permit, I had to sit an exam and the statutes decreeing breeding sanctions frequently cited your name as one of the researchers behind it all."

Charlie's ears turned red as he chuckled. "Yeah, well. I remember how badly I wanted a dragon as a kid," he said. "Even got my hands on a dragon egg from a backyard breeder when I was fifteen… it didn't end so well."

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"No?" she asked.

Charlie laughed, stepping back and rubbing the back on his neck.

"You know that section of the Burrow where my bedroom is and the surrounding areas?" he asked. "How they look newer than the rest?"

Hermione nodded, an amused smile pulling at the corners of her mouth despite the threat of being set up for illegal dragon possession. It was hard not to smile when Charlie was looking so sheepish right in that moment.

"I got hold of my egg in Hogsmeade right before getting on the train home," he told her. "I squirrelled it away in my trunk until I got home, and one night after everyone had gone to bed, I snuck downstairs and hatched it. I was hand rearing that little drake in my bedroom all summer – it wasn't too hard. He was an African Chura dragon. Not too big, not real bright, and prone to sleeping most of the time. It was pretty easy to hide him from Mum, most of the time, and I already had so many pets and creatures living in my room that she didn't bat an eye at the extra meat for feeding him."

He laughed, and Hermione shook her head, her smile wide.

"What happened?" she asked.

"He sneezed one afternoon when Mum was doing the dusting," Charlie admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nearly burned the whole house down, the bugger. Blew the wall out of my room with the explosion of it and damaged the rest of the rooms surrounding mine. Bill almost lost a leg when his room – which was the one above mine, back then – suddenly lost it's floor and he came plummeting down into the wreckage with old Borris."

"Borris?" Hermione laughed.

"He had to have a name, Hermione," Charlie said, like it was ludicrous to imagine otherwise. "Anyway, as you can imagine, Mum went ballistic. Me and Bill spent the rest of the summer sleeping on the floor in the living room while the repairs were done. Even Dad was right cross with me. Insisted that I had to be the one who fixed up the house. That's why it's a hodge-podge of woodwork, and a bit on the piss. I had no idea what I was doing, but once I got the hang of it, they couldn't stop me. Before that incident, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny were all squeeze into one bedroom on matching bunk-beds because Mum and Dad went into it planning on four kids, rather than seven and they just didn't have the space, the time, or the money to expand."

"You built those new sections?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Yep," Charlie grinned. "Poor old Borris was shipped off to a colony in Africa to be with his own kind and I _might_ have been called on by a specialist in the field who sat me down and explained the dangers of what I'd been doing, keeping him in my bedroom like that. I already loved dragons, of course, but I did start to realize why not everyone should be allowed around them. After I graduated, I threw myself into the study to get all my permits and licenses, and then into learn everything I could about the beasts. Since then, I've been helping regulate the rest of the world to make sure idiot kids like me don't kill their family members with some backyard breeding experiment."

Hermione smiled.

"You've done a good job of it, even if someone is now trying to use that research and the laws it's sparked to close me down," she sighed, shaking her head. "What do we need to do with these eggs?"

Charlie patted her shoulder reassuring.

"For tonight, nothing more. They need to be kept in this chamber until morning, at the very least, to make sure they won't die in transit. The temperature you had them at might very well have killed them if they'd been exposed to it much longer. These guys thrive in the cold. When it's time for them to hatch, their parents rip apart their nest on the cliffsides and send them all rolling down into the freezing artic seas below. They sink and the cold pushes the babies into hatching – the rolling and the fall helps to crack the eggs open, too. Those that surface, go on to join the colony. Those that don't…"

Charlie shrugged his shoulders and it couldn't clearer to her that he had accepted the laws of nature when it came to survival of the fittest.

"I'm so sorry I almost cooked them," Hermione apologized again.

"You didn't know, love. Don't worry about it," Charlie said. "I'll make a Floo call when we get back to the Burrow to let my contact who minds the colony know that we've got the eggs, and that we'll bring them home to him tomorrow, once they're cool enough."

"Won't he be asleep by now? It's almost midnight, Charlie."

Charlie chuckled.

"With a pair of rampaging Frostfangs on the loose in his colony and causing this blizzard? Not a chance, love. And anyway, he's getting on a bit, so he doesn't sleep as much as he used to. We'll get the last of this paperwork in order for you, so that when the Ministry chap comes by and sees what's been going on with your incubator, you'll be covered; and we'll have the eggs out of here before we've got to worry about them poking their noses in."

"Won't you be in trouble if your name is on all these documents?" Hermione asked.

Charlie shook his head.

"Nah. I'm fully licensed. They can't touch me. And it might be that my Frostfang minding friend has been attempting to woo me into taking over from him minding the colony here in Britain for a while now. He'll go on record to keep the dragons safe and keep the heat off you."

"He doesn't even know me," Hermione protested.

"He doesn't need to," Charlie chuckled. "He trusts me. And anyway, when I tell him what you're up to saving the magical creatures of our world, he's going to be very interested in meeting you."

Hermione raised her eyebrows, her curiosity piqued about this man that Charlie spoke of with such respect and her mind latching onto the idea that he might be able to take a position here in Britain and still keep his dragons even without approaching Kingsley about opening a reserve in British soil.

"Come on, _koroleva_ ," he said when he was finished with all the papers and had neatly tucked away the quill he'd used once more.

He held his hand out to her, moving toward the stairs back up to her apartment above the clinic, waiting expectantly for her to take it.

"Do you want to use my Floo to call your friend, so we don't disturb the others at the Burrow?" Hermione offered, turning off the lights and taking his hand in the dark.

"Nah," Charlie said. "It won't go through from your place. He's very selective about which fireplaces he allows through to contact him, these days."

Hermione nodded.

"Grab anything you might've forgotten to stay overnight at the Burrow, yeah?" Charlie said. "You were planning on staying the night, right?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"Well… no, not really," Hermione admitted, looking up at him in confusion. "There's no room for me. Everyone has their spouse staying the night since the rest of your siblings are all loved up, so their rooms are all occupied, and Teddy and Victoire are in the guest room. Unless I camp on the floor in the living room, there's nowhere for me to sleep."

Charlie's lips twitched.

"You could bunk in with me," he offered quietly, and when she met his gaze, the heat in his eyes drenched her knickers all over again.

She gulped audibly.

"You… won't mind?" she asked.

"Mind having a beautiful witch curled up beside me in matching jammies and reading the book I got her into the wee small hours?" he chuckled. "You don't know me that well if you think that's something I'll object to, _koroleva_."

Hermione bit her lip, her eyes searching his face and it occurred to her that this might be the perfect moment to make a move. Sliding her feet a little closer until she was well inside his personal space, Hermione tipped her head up, holding his gaze and wondering if he wanted her as much as she wanted him right in that moment.

"If you keep looking at me like that, Hermione Granger," Charlie said, his voice going low and husky as he brought his hand up to smooth his calloused palm over her cheek affectionately. "You might not get much reading done, and might not stay in those jammies, after all."

Hermione licked her lips, her heart racing inside her chest.

"I prefer to sleep naked with company, anyway," she confessed softly, and Charlie's answering grin was pure wickedness before he leaned down and claimed her lips hungrily.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: *Mwahahaha!***

 ***Clears throat when she spots you***

 ***Offers the chapter, grinning mischievously***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

* * *

Her kissed her hard, his hands sliding into her hair and his body pressing flush against hers. Hermione thought she might explode with pure happiness. Kissing him back hungrily, she reached for him, curling her arms around his neck and pulling herself as close as she could given that they were both still clad in their heavy winter attire despite not having travelled outdoors. Charlie's tongue swept against the seam of her lips and she parted them for him greedily, only too eager to draw him closer still.

He tasted of the cocktails they both been drinking before leaving the Burrow and his body was so warm; so firm and so strong and so utterly male that Hermione feared she might actually swoon. He walked her backward across her flat until her back hit the benchtop in her dingy kitchen before he lifted her until she sat upon it, all without breaking their fervent snog. Merlin, it felt like she'd waited a lifetime for that kiss and Hermione pulled him closer, curling her legs around him and clutching him desperately.

They were both breathing hard when they broke the kiss and Hermione was thinking that it looked like Christmas was going to be extra good to her this year. Gods, it'd been too long since she'd shared her body with a man as she whiled away months and years pining for Charlie, and now here he was, hungrily devouring her lips. His tongue traced against her own expertly, making her dizzy and making her want to find out just how talented that muscle might be when engaged with other parts of her anatomy.

"Gods, Charlie," Hermione gasped when they broke their fervent snog and he kissed the length of her jaw and down her neck, his hands deserting her hair to begin wrestling with the scarf wrapped around her throat, apparently desperate to get at her skin.

Charlie didn't say anything as he managed to unwind the scarf, and his fingers made short work of the bright silver toggles on her cloak, pushing that from her shoulders too. He kissed her neck and Hermione tipped her head, her heart racing inside her chest and her breath coming in sharp gasps. She would've been embarrassed at the low groan of pleasured delight that tore from her lips when he hit upon that sweet spot just below her ear, driving her crazy, but she was too delirious with happiness and desire to care.

How many nights had she daydreamed of finding herself in his arms this way? How many wicked fantasies had she indulged, thinking of him and bringing herself pleasure? Gods, how often had she wondered what his lips might taste like and what his rough hands would feel like cupping her breasts? She sincerely hoped all those fantasies were about to become a glorious reality.

"Gods, you taste even better than I dreamed," Charlie groaned, his lips by her ear as her fingers plucked at the toggles of his cloak, ridding him of it as she shoved it from his powerful shoulders, rather enjoying the way it slipped the length of his body to puddle messily about his feet.

"Don't stop," Hermione begged softly, pulling him down for another dizzying kiss when he pulled back a little bit.

He growled against her lips as he kissed her back, clutching her against himself, his hips bucking just a little against the junction of her thighs where she'd wrapped them around him. Hermione feared she was going to ruin her knickers, she wanted him so badly. The heat pouring off him and the desire raging through her would surely send them up in flames. He kissed her until Hermione couldn't think straight; couldn't see straight; couldn't breathe.

"Fuck," Charlie groaned when he pulled back, breathing hard and laying his forehead against her. "You have no idea how badly I want to fuck you right here on this bloody bench, _koroleva_."

"So, do it," Hermione encouraged, rolling her hips a little and carding her fingers through his thick red hair.

"Mmm," Charlie groaned. "Shit, I need to Floo call Newt about those dragons, or I'm going to forget."

"You could call him after," Hermione bargained.

Charlie's laugh was low and wicked.

"You imagine either of us will be able to walk, after?" Charlie asked, his voice husky and his eyes glittering with heat that made Hermione quiver with anticipation.

"But you said you have to call him from the Floo at the Burrow," she said. "Which means we'd be in your mother's house. Where two adorable children are liable to be up at the crack of dawn, potentially bursting into their favourite uncle's bedroom."

"We can get dressed again after," Charlie rolled his eyes.

Hermione laughed.

"We could… though I expect that your mother might have kittens if she finds me in your bed."

"When the woman's been nagging me about finding myself a witch for years? Not bloody likely," Charlie laughed.

He leaned in and kissed her again before Hermione could clarify if this was his way of asking her to be his witch, and she was sure she melted into a big, quivering pile of delight right there in his arms.

"Bloody hell," he said when they broke apart after several minutes of gloriousness. "Come on. The sooner I make my call, the sooner I can have you."

He scooped his arms around her tightly and Hermione squeaked in surprise when he curled his hands under her bum, holding her in place against him with her legs still wrapped around him even as he strode across the room to the Floo. He kissed her again on the way, breaking openly to grab a look at the jar of Floo Powder mounted in a repurposed flower-pot against the brickwork. He didn't put her down even when he stepped into the flames, calling out for the Burrow before snogging her again as they began to spin.

Her protests about unsafe travel practices were swallowed and promptly forgotten when the spinning and dizzying effect of Floo travel coupled with the rioting butterflies in her stomach thanks to the taste of his lips and the feels of him against her. It didn't even occur to her that they'd forgotten to grab any of her overnight supplies before leaving until the fireplace spat them out on the floor of the living room, the wild ride having partially dislodged her from around Charlie, her legs unfurling. It was just as well they did, because the effect of the two of them travelling together in such a way made exiting the fireplace an ordeal and a half, Charlie skidding across the floor on his back with Hermione still clutched in his arms.

He laughed when they skidded all the way across the floor and collided with the Christmas tree, almost toppling it over.

"Bloody hell, that was fun," he grinned into her face.

Hermione wasn't so sure she agreed with him, her stomach roiling violently.

"For you, maybe," she muttered. "I think I might be sick."

Charlie winced.

"It was a bit wild," he allowed, releasing her when she rolled off of him quickly and sat up, trying to take deep, even breaths to calm her stomach.

"I think I need a glass of water," she confessed.

Charlie nodded.

"No worries, _koroleva_ , I need to call Newt, anyway," he said.

"Do want anything?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Mmm," Charlie grinned, peering up at her as she tried to right her clothing and dust off the soot from their travels. "You. Naked. In my bed in about fifteen minutes."

Hermione blushed.

"I'll make you a cup of tea," she told him before hurrying out of the room, not about to ruin her first intimate moment with the man by confessing that such a wildly spinning Floo-trip combined with the effects of the Bloody Firestorm cocktail he'd given her were actually making her fear she might vomit.

Charlie laughed at her response before dusting himself off and sitting up, crawling over to the fireplace and reaching for the Floo Powder to make his call.

"Newt?" he called out loudly, kneeling with his head in the fireplace.

The kitchen of Mr and Mrs Scamander was illuminated only by the glow of an enormous Christmas tree in the far corner and the fireplace itself.

"NEWT? You there?"

Charlie peered around, hoping for a response. He spied the family owl perched on a specially carved piece of wood by the window.

"Archibald, is Newt home?" Charlie asked of the owl.

Archibald blinked owlishly at him before hooting loudly.

"Bloody hell," Charlie grumbled. "I don't want to come through and drag you out of bed, old man."

Before he could do as he'd just suggested, Tina Scamander hurried into the kitchen tying the sash on her nightgown and blinking sleepily.

"Hello?" she called, frowning and looking about the kitchen.

"Over here, Mrs Scamander," Charlie said, grinning. "In the fireplace. It's Charlie Weasley."

Tina turned in a circle before spotting him.

"Oh, Charlie, is everything alright?" she asked.

She made no mention of the late hour, or the fact that he'd clearly pulled her out of bed.

"Is Newt around?" Charlie asked. "I'm sorry it's so late, but I've got some vital information for him."

"He's trying to calm the Frostfangs," Tina sighed. "This blizzard, as you might've realized, is hardly natural."

"No, I know. That's why I'm calling. He's missing about a dozen Frostfang eggs, I'd reckon?" Charlie said.

"How do you know?" Tina asked, frowning at him.

"Because they turned up in London. A shady chap ambushed a friend of mine, Hermione Granger, at her clinic for magical creatures late last night and dumped a crate of twelve Frostfangs eggs into her care. She mistook them for Shortsnout eggs, because of the colouring… but she got them into a DEI to incubate before bringing them to my attention when I came home tonight."

"Oh, goodness," Tin said, clutching her chest. "They're not cooked, are they? We'll never stop the blizzard if they are."

"Not yet," Charlie said. "I got to them today, and got the temperature down below freezing as soon as I saw them. They're still there, but they should be ready for transport by morning."

"Tina, what is it, darling?" Newt came bustling into the room at that moment, the door blasting open into the kitchen and almost disconnecting Charlie's Floo call when the blast of cold air almost put the fire out.

"Charlie Weasley found your missing eggs," Tina told her husband without preamble.

"Charlie?" Newt asked, spinning to peer at him in the fireplace, still spry for a man who'd celebrated his one-hundred-and-ninth birthday that year. "That you?"

"Howdy, Newt," Charlie said, grinning at his mentor and the man who'd made his career possible. "I've got your missing eggs."

"How?" Newt asked, shaking his head.

"You heard of Hermione Granger?" Charlie asked him.

Newt's eyes lit up.

"That lovely young lass who opened a Foundation to help magical creatures in London?" Newt asked, and Charlie wasn't surprised to know he'd heard of Hermione.

"That's the one. Someone showed up at the door to her clinic late last night with a crate full of twelve Frostfang eggs."

"What on earth for?" Newt frowned.

"I reckon it was someone trying to get her closed down if the Ministry had busted her with them. She's got a breeder's permit and a DEI in the clinic, special delivery courtesy of the Minister being a personal friend," Charlie said.

"But not the qualifications or permits for Frostfang eggs. And someone is trying to close her doors by having her caught with them because those bastards in London can't stand having vampires and werewolves and goblins frequenting her foundation for all those lovely things she provides," Newt finished for him.

Charlie nodded.

"That's right. She mentioned to me tonight when I came home from the Romanian reserve that she'd been given them. She mistook them for Shortsnout eggs," Charlie said, and he watched Newt close his eyes for a long moment in apparent horror as though bracing himself to be told the eggs had been cooked.

"They're fine, dear," Tina told him, putting a hand on his arm.

"It's true," Charlie said. "She'd set the DEI to the average temperature that would've worked on a Shortsnout egg, but not quite high enough to cook them. They've been exposed for roughly twenty-four hours, but as soon as I recognized them, I lowered it to sub-zero temperatures. They're still there now, but they'll need the rest of the night to chill before we can safely transport them to you."

"Thank Merlin," Newt said, lowering his gaze to the floor for a moment.

"I know tomorrow's Christmas and all," Charlie went on, "But if you don't mind, we'll bring them by around mid-morning? Get them back in their nest before their parents send us spiraling into the next Ice Age."

Newt nodded.

"You know you're always welcome here," he said to Charlie. "And it'll be good practice for you to meet the colony again. You'll win a few points with the Fangs by bringing those eggs home, too."

Charlie grinned.

"Bring this Hermione, won't you, Charlie?" Tina asked, smiling a little from behind Newt.

"Oh, please do," Newt nodded. "I'd very much like to meet her. If she's free, that is."

"I'll bring her along," Charlie smiled widely.

Newt eyed him for a long moment, and Charlie wondered if the old man could see right through him to the heart of the matter with Hermione.

"Perhaps it will be good to introduce Miss Granger to the Frostfangs, too," he mused, grinning a little. "And we'd better just see about getting her polished up on her dragonology so she doesn't accidentally cook any of those eggs again."

"Yes, sir," Charlie said, unable to hide his amused and pleased grin.

"Good," Newt said. "See you tomorrow then, son."

Charlie nodded.

'See you then," he said. "And I'm sorry for waking you, Mrs Scamander."

Tina waved off his apology with a laugh, used to being woken in the middle of the night for creature related instances after decades of marriage to a man who'd done so much to improve the way the wizarding world viewed its fantastic beasts.

Pulling his head out of the fireplace, Charlie coughed the soot from his throat before getting to his feet. He peered around the living room, looking for Hermione and his eyebrows rose when instead, he spotted his Dad standing with his shoulder propped against the doorway leading to the stairs.

"Did I wake you, Dad?" Charlie asked, frowning apologetically, supposing that the roar of the Floo as they'd left and returned had awoken Arthur Weasley.

"I wasn't asleep yet before you left," Arthur confessed quietly. "Everything alright, Charlie? I thought the roar was just Hermione heading home for the night, but the second one made me worry."

"Everything's fine, Dad," Charlie reassured him. "Just a bit of a situation at Hermione's clinic. Dragons…"

"So I heard," Arthur nodded. "You'll be stepping out briefly before lunch tomorrow, then?"

Charlie nodded.

"Yeah, sorry about that, Dad. I know Mum's wanting to make a real day of it, but we've got to get the Frostfang eggs back to their nest before anything too drastic happens," he explained, worried his Dad might be upset with him.

Arthur waved away the apology.

"Better we miss you for an hour than be plunged into an Ice Age, I know," Arthur chuckled, pushing away from the door and strolling further into the room.

Charlie watched the way he went over to the couch where he and Hermione had left her book and their matching pyjamas. Arthur raised his eyebrows at Charlie in question and Charlie shrugged.

"Icelandic Christmas tradition I thought she'd like," Charlie offered quietly, his eyes growing warm as he tried to avoid the look on his father's face.

"A nice one, I take it. The matching outfits are just the ticket," Arthur chuckled, teasing him good naturedly.

"Yeah, well, that wasn't on purpose," Charlie admitted. "When I was getting her a pair, I noticed I also needed some and these were the only type they had. I might've… accidentally caught the fire in the last pair Mum gave me last Christmas."

Arthur frowned at him.

"Don't tell you mother that," Arthur said, shaking his head. "She worries for you terribly when you're away."

Charlie sighed, nodding and peering over his shoulder toward the kitchen, wondering where Hermione had gotten to.

"How've you been anyway, Dad?" Charlie asked, seeing no sign of the witch he'd intended to ravish following his Floo-Call.

"Fine," Arthur nodded. "Fine. Busy at work. Head of the Department now, you know? And it's got its own challenges. Far fewer chances to pilfer muggle artefacts and smuggle them into my shed where your mother won't see them."

Charlie grinned.

"They're not working you too hard, I hope?" he asked, frowning.

"I'm alright," Arthur assured him. "And you, son? How're things in Romania?"

"Busy," Charlie admitted, crossing to drop into one of the armchairs by the fire. "Always bloody busy, Dad. Too many dragons and not enough Tamers to keep them from getting into mischief, you know?"

Arthur nodded, and Charlie could tell from the way his father was looking at him that he wanted to say more – wanted to ask about his plans for the future and how he proposed to ever walk away from a job that was already short-staffed.

"We've missed you, son," Arthur said quietly, and Charlie nodded, gritting his teeth against any emotion.

"Missed you too, Dad," he said gruffly.

He knew that his Dad wouldn't say any more on the subject, no matter that he likely wanted Charlie home and settled with a good witch just as badly as Molly did.

"Did Hermione come back with you?" Arthur asked, tipping his head in the direction of the kitchen when the brief, shrill shout of the kettle boiling sounded.

"Yeah," Charlie nodded, his ears turning red again. "Easier than her heading home and having to come back in the morning, eh?"

Arthur nodded.

"I've been meaning to get around to installing a few more rooms into this old house," he said fondly, looking around. "Going to need the space, soon. Bill's got another little one on the way. And it'll be a matter of time before Ginny and Harry are married and start thinking of children. Harry already wants them, from what I can see of how he is with Teddy. The twins, too… they're leaning toward children in a few years, now that the franchise is stable and they're both settling into their marriages. Soon we'll need all the rooms we can get to house the many grandchildren I hope will be popping out of this house at the seams."

Charlie nodded, closing his eyes briefly at the ache in his chest to bring his Dad the grandchildren that Charlie knew Arthur desperately wanted.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Percy and Oliver start looking into adoption, myself," Hermione mused, strolling into the room levitating three cups of tea. "Soon you'll have a house full of children and you won't know what to do with yourself, Mr Weasley. You'll have to escape to your shed more and more often just to get a moment's peace, if Molly has her way."

Arthur laughed quietly.

"Peace is overrated," he informed the two of them as Hermione handed him his tea before crossing the room to give Charlie's his. "I raised seven boisterous children, you know? This old house is so… empty… without all of you home, anymore."

Hermione's heart constricted inside her chest and she squeezed Charlie's shoulder when she caught his agonized expression to see his Dad looking so forlorn.

"They never tell you that part," Arthur went on quietly. "They all warn that too-soon, they'll be grown, and to enjoy the little moments while they're young, and all of that. But no one tells you about the silence when the brood has flown the coop and their rooms are all left empty. Retire, they say. Enjoy the freedom those little blighters robbed you of for so many years when you put their happiness before your own. But they never mention that there is no freedom in loneliness. When you dedicate your life to raising brilliant children that go on to have outstanding careers, flinging them across the globe, they never mention that when they're gone, you're left with holes they used to occupy and nothing to fill them up with."

Charlie darted a look at Hermione when he heard her sniffle as she perched on the arm of his chair, sipping her tea. Her eyes were suspiciously wet as she watched Arthur speak, and Charlie supposed that, having wiped her parents' memories as she had, she felt even guiltier listening to such a speech.

"Won't be long, Dad," Charlie said quietly, though he didn't specify whether he spoke of the grandchildren he already had on the way, or of himself and his contribution to the growing brood of kids that would soon fill this house, once more.

Arthur nodded, smiling stiffly when he realized he'd lapsed into melancholy.

"Well, better get back to bed, eh?" he said, taking a few large gulps of his tea before rising to his feet. "Before your Mum comes looking for me and can start pestering you again."

Charlie nodded.

"Night, Dad," he said, frowning after the man as he headed for the stairs once more.

"Goodnight," he bid them, smiling at the two of them where they perched on the same armchair.

Hermione smiled, waving him off, and she and Charlie sat in silence, listening to the sounds of Arthur climbing the stairs until the bedroom door creaked closed.

"Well…" Charlie said after a long pause, tipping his head to look at Hermione seriously. "That got heavy."

Hermione laughed a little, nodding her head and wiping her eyes.

"Come on, _koroleva_ ," Charlie said, smiling at her a little. "Let's get to bed. It'll be an early start with Teddy and Victoire in the house."

Hermione nodded, sighing as she got to her feet.

"Better take these, love," Charlie said, picking up her pyjamas and book from the couch. "Now that the old man has effectively killed the mood with his somber bollocks, you'll probably need them to keep warm. Where did you disappear to, anyway?"

Hermione's heart sank a little.

"The bathroom," she confessed. "Your Bloody Firestorm got the best of me after that wild spinning. Fortunately, I keep a spare toothbrush here."

Charlie chuckled as he collected his trunk and began flicking his wand to douse the remaining lights in the kitchen and the living room, leaving only the glow of the fire and the twinkling Christmas light on the tree to light the way.

"Yeah, that drink will wreck most people," he nodded. "Took me a while to get used to it, but they're bloody good."

Hermione laughed, following him when he began the long climb up to his bedroom - which was actually the repurposed attic thanks to Ron taking over Charlie's room when he'd moved out. She shivered the higher they climbed, the heat of the fireplace far below doing little to warm the draughty attic.

"I hope you don't mind cuddling," she said quietly when they reached his room and she'd closed the door behind them.

"Bit cold, eh?" Charlie grinned, dumping his trunk at the end of the bed and beginning to peel off layers of clothing, intent on getting into his pyjamas.

"Just a little," Hermione confessed, shivering a bit herself and hesitating, wondering if she ought to ask him to turn his back so she could change.

It was one thing to let him see her naked should they shag, but another thing entirely to strip just for the sake of changing clothes.

"You alright?" he asked when she eventually decided to hell with her modesty and began wriggling out of her jeans.

Hermione looked over and gasped when she spotted the fact that Charlie had stripped down to just his jeans.

"Gods, Charlie, you're covered in bandages!" Hermione said, her eyes wide as she stared at him, noting the thick wrapping of bandages around his right ankle and his entire torso. "Merlin, did I hurt you when I had my legs around you? What've you done?"

Charlie glanced down at himself, seeming almost surprised by the sight of the bandaging.

"Ah, I'm fine," he waved his hand dismissively. "Told you earlier that old Krampus tried to take a few bites out of me."

"You were bitten?" Hermione gasped. "Charlie, those fangs could've gone right through you!"

He grinned at her.

"I'm alright, Hermione," he promised. "I've had worse, I can assure you."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Hermione said, planting her hands on her hips and stomping her foot.

She scowled at him, oblivious to having changed into her flannel pants but only gotten halfway through changing her top.

"You're sweet to worry about me, _koroleva_ ," Charlie said, though his eyes were tracing over her bare upper half.

Hermione gasped, realizing she'd taken her bra off and not put her shirt back on. Clapping her hands over her breasts, she scowled at him all the more.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked seriously.

"Nah," he said. "I'm fine. Probably don't even need the bandages anymore."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him.

"What?" he said. "You want me to prove it? I'll strip it all off if you will, love."

He shot her a look so hot she almost swooned, but Hermione wasn't fooled. Stomping closer and deciding that she really wouldn't mind if it was Charlie's hands on her breasts rather than her own, she invaded his personal space until she could reach his bandages. Carefully, she began to unwind them from around him, untying the knot at his collarbone and unravelling him quickly.

He had a collection of puncture wounds over his abs and his right shoulder, Hermione noted, frowning, though they were pink with freshly healed scars, rather than still bloody.

"Might have to leave the one on my leg for a bit longer," he confessed when Hermione traced her fingers over the wounds with an expert's eye.

"You're sure I didn't hurt you when you were carrying me around?" she asked worriedly.

"I was somewhat distracted at the time," Charlie grinned down at her.

She held perfectly still when he reached with both hands to cup her cheeks, peering his desire at her resolutely.

"I'm fine," he said. "I promise. Are you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Hermione asked.

"The drink made you sick," he reminded her.

"It did, but it's kind of a mood killer to keep bringing it up," she pointed out.

Charlie laughed, lowering his face slowly toward hers.

"You brushed your teeth, yeah?" he teased, and Hermione smacked her palm against his bare chest, connecting with one of his many dragon tattoos.

"Yes," she rolled her eyes. "And flossed. And rinsed with mouthwash."

"Clean-freak," Charlie accused, rolling his eyes before he closed the distance between their lips, stealing another hot kiss from her.

Hermione suspected that she was in well over her head to know that even knowing she'd been unwell, he wanted to kiss her. Even knowing he'd been hurt, he wanted to kiss her. And based on the lead pipe prodding her insistently from the confines of his jeans, Charlie Weasley wanted to do a whole lot more than kiss her.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: *Scampers in***

 **This _might_ be the chapter you've all been waiting for**

 ***Widens eyes, glances around shiftily***

 ***dives behind the couch***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

* * *

Her hands slid over his lithe torso greedily as Charlie kissed her maddeningly, gliding over warm flesh and to the buckle on his belt. It jingled as she undid it, and the rasp of his zipper made her quiver with anticipation. Or maybe that was the rough and calloused hands he slid from cupping her face, down her neck and over her chest to cup her breasts.

Without thinking, Hermione arched into the touch, desperate for more. Charlie gave it; a low whine tore from Hermione's throat as he broke their kiss with a rough squeeze of her breasts before he pinched both of her nipples between each thumb and forefinger. The sexual tension between them fizzed wildly like the desire bubbling in her blood and Hermione hissed as Charlie lowered his mouth to kiss her neck. He growled in the back of his throat when she began working his jeans carefully down his legs, mindful that he was hurt when she spied the top of the bandage wrapped around his thigh.

Unable to resist, she leaned into him, kissing and licking her way over his chest and down his abs as she peeled his jeans from his legs.

"Blimey, Hermione," Charlie growled when she knelt on the ground before him and looked up at him from beneath long lashes.

Sultrily, she licked her lips as she stripped him of his boxers. Charlie's eyes glittered with desire, their vibrant blue mesmerizing her like the colour at the heart of a flame. Biting her lip, Hermione trailed her eyes lower, focusing on the jutting appendage before her and unable to hold back her little huff of delight when she saw just what she had to work with.

Smoothing her hands along the length of his abs and delighting in the ridges of hard muscle there, Hermione trailed her fingers through the thatch of red curls nestled around the prettiest cock she was sure she'd ever seen. Charlie drew in a sharp breath when she curled both hands around the silken steel length of him, carefully learning his length and girth, stroking him surely. Charlie never took his eyes off her, watching her every move as she took her time tormenting him.

Licking her lips once more, she gave him no other warning before leaning forward and engulfing the head of his cock in her all too willing mouth.

"Fuck!" she heard Charlie curse in a desperate whisper and when she tipped her head up, she found he'd dropped his back.

His hands came up to tangle into her curls, cradling her head as she swirled her tongue around the head of his cock, bobbing her head slowly up and down, taking a little more of him each time. She moved her hands in tandem with her mouth, closing her eyes and focusing solely on the task she'd imagined performing thousands of times in her dizziest daydreams. The low groan she tore from him as she made love to him with her mouth was enough to leave her wet and needy, and Hermione only hoped he'd be willing to repay the favor.

"Ah, fuck, _koroleva!_ " Charlie groaned after several minutes his hands tightening in her hair as he stepped back out of her reach. She uttered a sound of protest, trying to follow him, but Charlie didn't let her.

"Enough of that, or the evening will come to an abrupt end," he confessed with a laugh. "Come up here, love."

He slid his hands under her arms, lifting her back onto her feet with ease before he kissed her hard, his lips bruising against her own, his tongue sweeping hungrily into her mouth. Hermione kissed him back, delirious with need as he flicked her pyjama pants and her knickers from her hips, sending them skidding down her legs before walking her backward until she collided with the bed. Rather than letting her topple onto it, Charlie surprised her when he scooped her up, his hands gripping her arse. Before she could wrap her legs around him, he tossed her down onto the middle of the bed and she squeaked in surprise when she landed in the middle, peering up at him hungrily.

"Stay there," he commanded when she made to reach for him once more, holding a finger up to make her wait.

"Charlie," Hermione said, narrowing her eyes one him.

He shot her a wink before ferreting around in the pocket of his discarded jeans. First, he locked the door securely, ensuring that no interlopers would be able to access the room before they were good and ready to come out. Next, he flicked several silencing charms about the place to make certain they wouldn't wake the rest of the house.

"Don't make me wait, Charlie," Hermione warned, arranging herself on the bed in what she hoped was a seductive pose.

"One more thing, love," he laughed, and she frowned when he began digging around in his trunk.

She was relieved when he unearthed a box of condoms, though surprised to see them since most wizards tended to rely on spells and potions instead when it came to contraception.

"You don't mind these, right?" he asked, holding up the box. "I'm allergic to the potion and I've forgotten the spell."

Hermione shook her head.

"Those are fine," she said.

"Good," Charlie grinned, carrying the box to the bed and tossing it down before chucking his wand down as well. "Then come here."

Hermione squealed in surprised when he seized hold of her ankles, dragging her by them until her bum was right at the edge of the bed. He knelt and before she could figure out his intentions or remind him about putting the condom on if he wanted it to be effective, he leaned in and dragged his tongue the full length of her pussy.

She died.

She was sure she died right there in that moment. Her back arching, Hermione clenched her hands in the sheets, a sharp gasp the only thing keeping her breathing when he began to devour her like he couldn't get enough. Her legs thrown over his shoulders, his arms curled around her protectively, caging her in and holding her in place he ate her out like a starving man at a feast. The feel of his tongue licking and licking and licking was enough to drive her mad, and the scrape of his stubble over her sensitive flesh had her crying out. She tossed her head back and forth on the bed, her thighs attempting to snap closed around his head in a vain attempt to fend off the onslaught.

Charlie only laughed, his breath tickling her skin and making her crazy.

"Gods, Charlie," Hermione gasped, lifting her head as he dove his tongue inside her, tasting her, tormenting her, driving her wild.

He watched her over the rim of her pubic bone, his blue eyes gleaming with a lust so possessive, she quivered. Her stomach was in knots and Hermione began to think there might be no going back from this. He looked at her like he owned her, and any protests to that fact would be fucked right out of her. When he latched onto her clit and sucked hard, Hermione screamed.

She didn't mean to, but the soft shriek he tore from her rent the air and she arched, her whole body engulfed as the firestorm he'd unleashed upon her reached it's raging climax. He groaned when she knotted her fingers in his hair as she orgasmed, her heart pounding out and uneven beat and her pussy clenching needily. Charlie licked her all the way through it, lapping at her flesh like he couldn't get enough of her.

"Gods, Charlie," Hermione whispered, her body going lax. "I need you. I need you, now."

Charlie's laugh was wicked as he gave her one final, affectionate lick before releasing her. He waved her up the bed as he rose to his full height before snatching up the box on condoms and fishing one out. Hermione wriggled to the middle of the bed and watched him roll the latex over his impressive cock before he fixed her look at had her insides clenching.

"You sure about this?" he asked, kneeling on the bed between her spread legs and looking at her seriously for a long moment.

"God, yes," Hermione confessed, and Charlie laughed at her response.

"Thank bloody Merlin for that," he muttered before lifting both of her legs until they were hooked over his shoulders once more and getting comfortable between them.

Hermione squirmed, her breath coming in little gasps, the anticipation killing her. Charlie was grinning evilly at her as he aligned their bodies and Hermione narrowed her eyes at him.

"What?" she asked when he paused before claiming her.

He shook his head, grinning and chuckling a little.

"What?" she said again, poking his shoulder and scowling at him.

"Nothing, _koroleva_ ," he muttered, leaning down and brushing his lips softly against her. " _Nothing at all!_ "

Hermione gasped when he accompanied that final sentence with a long deep thrust, driving into her high and hard and with such force that she scooted up the bed a little. He claimed her lips for another dizzying kiss while her body fluttered and clenched in shock at suddenly having his cock seated so deeply inside it. Charlie kissed her hard, nipping her lip and tangling his tongue with hers while he waited for her to grow accustomed to the feel of him inside her.

She clung to him, her nails digging into his arms and her heart fit to burst right out her chest it pounded so hard with happiness and lust. Curled as she was with her knees hooked over the tops of his shoulders, she would swear it felt like he was going to fuck a hole in her belly when he withdrew slowly before thrusting in hard again.

"Gods, Charlie," Hermione whispered, breaking their kiss when he did it again. "Don't tease!"

Charlie pulled back a little, meeting her gaze and raising one eyebrow.

"You want more?" he asked.

Hermione nodded.

"You want it harder?" he smirked. "Do you like to play rough, Hermione?"

Hermione bit her lip before she nodded shyly. Charlie's answering grin was pure sin.

"Thank fuck," he uttered before picking up the pace, driving into her hard and fast and rough enough to send her slowly scooting up the bed toward the headboard.

The old metal frame began to creak softly as he drilled into her again and again and again, and Hermione could only cling on for the wild ride, the tension coiling through her body and rushing over her senses like wildfire. Charlie was relentless, their bodies slapping together with each thrust. When he began grinding in deeper on the inward thrust, Hermione groaned, her head tossing from side to side. Every time he impaled her, she was sure she was going to die, and every time he pulled back, she wanted to beg him to return.

Over and over, he slammed into her, his breath coming faster, his hands coming up to grip her hips and pin her to the bed beneath him.

"Fuck," Hermione whispered, her eyes going wide in panic when the building tension low in her abdomen began to spasm, the dam threatening to break, the waves threatening to consumer her, to pull her under and drown her in everything that was Charlie Weasley; everything she'd ever wanted.

Charlie opened his eyes to look at her when he heard her curse and his expression was completely feral. In that moment he looked like a wild animal who'd finally cornered his prey. He looked like the hungry dragon just about to incinerate his victim; the cat who got the canary _and_ the cream. He looked like a hungry wolf ready to devour her and he looked like he loved every fucking minute of it. Hermione could see from the gleam in his eyes and the wicked slant of his mouth that he wanted to break her. He wanted to shatter her into a billion little pieces. He wanted to hear her scream; to bring her undone; to grow as wild and as feral as him.

And she would.

She could feel it building up inside of her. The scream. The need for what bordered of violence. The desperate craving for release. When she reached for him and knotted her hands in his red hair, pulling it hard enough to sting, Charlie pulled his lips back from his teeth like an angry dragon showing off his lethal fangs. He leaned into her then and he wasn't gentle as he kissed her neck, suckling the flesh hard enough to leave marks before biting her unforgivingly.

The sting of the pain pushed her over the edge and the scream that tore from her throat stung as much as it felt good. Her pussy clamped down on him and magic crackled through her curls and raced down her arms, dancing over her fingers in his hair and making it stand on end. Charlie growled out a feral sound that raised the hair on her arms, slamming into her harder and harder, bucking into her as he lost the fight to cling to his own self control amid the firestorm of her magic and her orgasmic release. When he nipped her again before groaning into the side of her neck, driving himself as deep as he could get and unleashing everything he had to give, Hermione felt it on a primal level that _this_ was the one thing she'd been born to do.

Charlie collapsed on top of her, letting her legs slide from his shoulder to rest against the mattress, both of them breathing heavily and riding the high of such a powerful release.

"Fucking hell," Charlie muttered against her skin, panting and rolling to the left, fishing himself from within her to lay beside her, spent.

Hermione moaned in agreement, closing her eyes and trying to get her breath back. That had been better than her wildest daydreams and it took everything she had not to roll over and confess that she might be in love with him. She wanted to burrow into his warmth and lay curled into his protective embrace, but she didn't know if that would come across as too needy. The last thing she wanted to do was give him the impression that she was a tart, or that she was too hung up on him right out the gate like this.

She didn't want to scare him off, after all.

Biting her lip, Hermione turned her head to trace her eyes over the handsome Dragon Tamer who had so thoroughly rocked her world right off its foundations. Merlin, but he was a sight to behold.

"You're bleeding," she noted idly.

"Huh?" Charlie asked, jumping a little at the sound of her voice and Hermione suspected she'd thoroughly worn him out.

"I scratched you," she pointed out, rolling toward him and indicating to the shallow scratch mark she'd left on his arm where she'd dug her nails into him in the heat of the moment.

Charlie held it up above the two of them, investigating the mark inquisitively before he grinned.

"Hellcat," he accused.

Hermione laughed.

"Sorry," she apologized, though she wasn't feeling particularly sincere about it.

Charlie looked like he knew she didn't regret it in the slightest and Hermione was pleased to see that he didn't look that apologetic, either.

He opened his mouth, intent on saying something but before he could, a jet of flames suddenly emitted from Charlie's trunk on the floor and Hermione screamed.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: *Cackles wickedly***

 ***Waves the chapter in front of your nose***

 ***whispers* "I have to go back to work tomorrow. Kill me?"**

 ***bribes you to do so with an 8k word chapter***

 ***waits patiently, trying to hold back the sobs***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

* * *

"Bloody hell, Charlie! What is _that_!?" Hermione exclaimed, scrambling up the bed and clutching the quilt to cover herself as the flames exploded far enough to almost scorch the ceiling.

"Oi!" Charlie shouted, leaping off the bed. "Hold your bloody horses, yeah? I'm coming."

He turned back to the bed, searching the rumpled bedcovers for his wand and scooping it up quickly.

"Charlie?" Hermione asked, frowning at him as he wriggled back into his jeans as quick as he could.

"Don't worry, Hermione," Charlie grinned at her. "It's just a few of my friends."

"In your trunk?" she frowned at him.

"Yeah, I've got an Undetectable Extension charm on it. It's been re-vamped from just a trunk into something of a haven for a few of my dragon friends," Charlie explained. "I've got to duck down there and feed them, love. They're hungry. I've been a bit distracted."

He grinned and shot her a wink.

Hermione shook her head as he turned away and she sat up slowly, watching him use his wand to contain the creature inside that was breathing fire, and descend into the trunk. Sitting up, she pulled back the covers and frowned, squirming at the unpleasant feeling that made itself known between her legs. Darting a look at the still-open trunk where she could hear Charlie sweet-talking someone or something named Boris, she peeled back the covers, spreading her legs to try and figure out the cause of that unpleasant feeling.

Hermione's eyes widened when she realized that it was the sickening feel of used latex being slowly dragged out of her.

"Oh… gross," Hermione whispered, frowning and reaching for the condom that had apparently come off during their passionate encounter.

Oh, that wasn't good.

Fishing it out of herself, Hermione held it up before her eyes, frowning and screwing her face up in disgust. It wasn't broken, from what she could see, but it had definitely come off. The question was… had it come off before or after Charlie had ejaculated?

Setting the condom aside, Hermione curled in on herself, trying to get a better look at her pussy and frowning as she poked her fingers into the now-swollen and abused passage. She dug her fingers in before pulling them out coated in liquid and she squinted, bringing it close to her face and trying to figure out based on the consistency whether it was just her own juices, or if semen was intermingled. She darted another look at the open trunk on the floor of the bedroom before narrowing her eyes and sticking her fingers in her mouth.

The flavor was less than pleasant, Hermione scowled, the taste of latex and condom lube intermingled with her own wetness. Rolling the flavor around in her mouth, Hermione narrowed her eyes. Yup. That was definitely also the taste of semen.

"Bugger," Hermione said, glancing at the open trunk again before looking down at her pussy once more.

She didn't know what to do.

The contraceptive spell – which she really ought to have cast before they'd begun – was ineffective after the act. She wasn't on the Potion because until this evening, she hadn't had intercourse with anyone in a little over three years. What was more, she didn't even have a spare pair of knickers with her, let alone a Morning-After-Potion. And tomorrow was Christmas. Any she had in her possession at her flat would be long out-of-date, and the stores would all be closed for the holiday. Asking Fleur was out, because the woman had been urging her for years to seduce Charlie into knocking her up _and_ she'd gotten rid of all her contraceptives when she and Bill had begun trying for the baby she now carried. Asking Ginny was out too – she was allergic to the Morning-After-Potion. She'd be a great help for Hermione to get her hands on the regular contraceptive Potion, but again, its effectiveness wasn't guaranteed within the first month.

Indeed, Ginny tended to three-fold her protection, so the Potion, condoms, and the Spell were all in her repertoire, but were currently useless to help Hermione.

"Shite!" Hermione whispered, running her clean hand through her wild curls and trying to figure out what to do. She wasn't about to ask Molly Weasley for the Morning-After-Potion…. The woman would have kittens to think her son was shagging Hermione right under her nose. And after everything they'd discussed this evening, Hermione wouldn't put it past the woman to refuse her request, hoping for more grandchildren.

Glancing at the trunk Charlie had disappeared into one more time, Hermione bit her lip.

She would have to tell him.

Wouldn't she?

She couldn't just… risk pregnancy _without_ telling him.

Could she?

Mentally, Hermione began counting in her head, trying to remember when she'd last had her period. There was a window, she knew, when she would be able to fall pregnant, and the rest of the month it was only a very slim chance, if non-existent. Had she started her period two weeks ago? Three? What bloody day was it, anyway?

"I usually get it during the first week of the month," Hermione muttered to herself. "Mmm… but it was late this month, wasn't it? I didn't get it until around the 9th…. Oh, shit!"

Hermione glanced down at her stomach, narrowing her eyes. She could usually tell when she was ovulating and though she hadn't noticed any of the usual signs, she _was_ right inside the ten to twenty day stage of her cycle where she _should_ be ovulating.

The worst part of the entire matter, Hermione realized as she rose shakily to her feet and began to pace back and forth across Charlie's bedroom, was that there was an insidious little part of her that was doing cartwheels and crossing its fingers for pregnancy. Her Biological Clock had just begun ticking like crazy and the idea of having Charlie's baby was making that insidious part of her positively giddy.

She should tell him the condom had come off and that she suspected insemination. It was the only responsible thing to do, wasn't it? She couldn't just… blind side him with an accidental pregnancy in a few months. That would be… no, she'd have to tell him. Charlie would never believe the child was his if she didn't tell him right away that the condom had come off.

Her mind made up, Hermione hurried to pull on the pyjamas he'd given her, smiling a little at the dragons dancing all over them. She didn't bother with underwear, not wanting to put the damp ones she'd been wearing all night back on.

"Charlie?" Hermione called, scooping up the discarded condom and making a face at the stickiness of it as it began to dry.

She went to the trunk and saw that there was a step ladder leading down into a wide room filled with supplies and even a bed. There was also a baby dragon perched on one of the benches.

"Crap," Hermione muttered, hurrying down into the trunk and pulling the lid closed over her head as she did so to prevent the little blighter from escaping. "Charlie!"

"Hermione?" Charlie called back to her from somewhere deeper in the trunk.

Narrowing her eyes when the baby dragon – a Romanian Longhorn hatchling, by the looks of him – hiccupped and spread his wings like he might try to fly to her, Hermione scooped up a spare pair of Dragon hide gloves and shoved her hands into them quickly. She really wasn't at all surprised that Charlie apparently had a trunkful of dragons in his possession, and when the baby leaped off the bench and flew in her direction, Hermione held her gloved arm out – the one not clutching the condom – and waited.

The baby squeaked at her when he landed, his talons digging in through the gloves but not piercing her skin, thank Merlin.

"Charlie, where are you?" Hermione called, holding the baby aloft the same way she would an owl.

"Through here," Charlie called. "Not so loud, _koroleva_ , you'll startle the dragons."

Hermione frowned, following the sound of his voice when she heard more sweet-talking coming from somewhere to her left.

She found him carrying a big bucket of raw meat with dragon hatchlings crawling all over him in the middle of a magically-manufactured green landscape.

"Charlie?" Hermione asked quietly, her stomach flipping as she watched the babies scurry all over him.

He was still shirtless, wearing only his jeans but he didn't seem to mind the way the claws of the babies pricked his skin, leaving tiny dots of blood that more than one of them were licking back off. He turned toward her, and Hermione's eyebrows rose when she realized he was cradling a young dragon on it's back, holding it like a baby and feeding it little chunks of meat that one of the others kept cooking, perched on top of his head.

"Hey, you got one," Charlie grinned, looking pleased.

"Yes, he was in the supply room," Hermione explained, squeaking when more baby dragons began flying in her direction, apparently thinking she had more food and that she'd be an excellent perch.

"Oi," Charlie said. 'No, don't just… Shoot, sorry Hermione."

Hermione cringed as ten dragons began using her for a perch.

"It's fine," she said, though her voice was pained as the little devil's claws pierced right through the thin flannel of her pyjamas as the dragons perched on her shoulders and her arms, clinging to her chest and her back. She winced when one of them began making a nest for itself in her hair.

"It's not," Charlie said. "They're hurting you."

"I'll be ok," Hermione said. 'They're only little."

"Aye, but their claws and teeth are needle-sharp. Oi, you little buggers, come back here."

He scattered some hunks of meat around his feet and Hermione whimpered when the dragons clinging to her all took flight to pounce on the food.

"They're as bad as pigeons," Hermione commented, laughing as she watched them when all but the dragon in her hair left her.

She almost got her feet burned off for her trouble when the little dragons all breathed fire in her direction.

"Oi!" Charlie growled. "Be nice, or I'll leave the lot of you out in the cold to fend for yourselves!"

They all growled at him and the one in his arms bit his shoulder.

"Ouch! For fuck's sake, Balthazar!" Charlie growled at the dragon biting him before leaning in and biting the creature in return.

Balthazar – a Welsh Green, she suspected – roared in annoyance before squirming out of Charlie's arms and flying away to perch on top of a tree branch across the field. It roared and breathed fire at him from it's branch and Hermione noticed that he was missing a foot.

"What happened to him?" she asked quietly, nodding at Balthazar.

"When he hatched we had a Horntail in the Sanctum – the hospital where we care for the wounded dragons. The big bastard busted loose from his enclosure and invaded the nest. Balthazar's mother fought him off, but a few of the eggs and the hatchlings were trampled in the process. Balthazar's foot was spiked on one of Karstark's horns. We had to amputate it when the wound got infected."

Hermione nodded, biting her lip and watching him give more of the babies some food. There were at least thirty, all different breeds, in the enclosure.

"What happened to needing to be quick and dragons making for lousy house-pets?" she asked, almost chickening out of telling him about the condom situation.

He grinned at her.

"They're babies," he pointed out. "And all the lads were heading home for the holidays, so we couldn't just leave them. Not with the blizzard raging. We've all taken home them that would otherwise have died in the cold without us there to care for them."

"Why do I get the feeling that one of these babies wasn't the one responsible for the fountain of flames that emitted from your trunk?" Hermione asked.

Charlie's ears turned red.

"Boris was hungry," he admitted sheepishly.

"Boris? The same Boris that almost burned the Burrow down when you were a teenager? I thought you said he was sent to live in a colony?" Hermione frowned.

"He was…" Charlie said, his neck getting red too. "But he… well… when dragons hatch, they imprint on their mothers, see? But since his mother wasn't around when he hatched, and I was…"

"He thinks you're his mother," Hermione finished for him.

Charlie nodded.

"The lads running the African colony were only too happy to release him into my care as soon as I got my permits," he admitted. "He's… uh… a bit of a handful."

Hermione's lips twitched a little bit as she tried to keep from laughing at Charlie's sheepish expression as though he felt he'd failed as a father for not being able to control a dragon.

"Of course, he is," she said, giggling a little.

Charlie shrugged. "You want to meet him? I still need to feed him. Had to feed the babies first, otherwise they flap around him when they're eating, and he tries to roast them."

"Is he going to try to roast me?" Hermione asked.

"Nah," Charlie grinned. "You smell like me all over. He'll love you."

He held his hand out to her, inviting her to follow him as he left the babies and started walking toward a door across the field.

"Um… about that…" Hermione began.

"Oi, Ashtari," Charlie interrupted. "Down, love. You can't nest there. Hermione, love, hold still, yeah?"

He turned back to her when they reached the door, stretching up as he tried to extract the baby Shortsnout from her curls. Ashtari bit his hand viciously, roaring and growling before breathing fire at him.

"Bitch," Charlie grumbled, hissing as he waved his bitten hand and clutched his burned forearm. "Hold still, Hermione."

She held perfectly still, her stomach flipping when Charlie suddenly narrowed his eyes on the dragon in her hair, baring his teeth in return and crouching a little. Ashtari roared again.

"Don't move, _koroleva,_ " Charlie whispered, reaching out slowly and pressing the tip of his gloved index finger to her chest, indicating he was talking to her and not the dragon.

Hermione quivered nervously.

She'd never seen Charlie look like that. He looked both angry and downright scary. Indeed, he looked like someone she would cross the street to avoid on a dark night. He looked mean. Mean enough to strangle someone with his bare hands. Ashtari breathed fire at him again, clinging to the top of Hermione's head and digging her claws into Hermione's scalp.

"Charlie," Hermione whispered, realizing he planned to snatch the dragon free. "She's digging her claws into my scalp."

She didn't want to be scalped in the process.

Charlie never took his eyes off the dragon, but he tapped his finger against her sternum twice to indicate he'd heard her. When he moved, Hermione had to bite back a scream. He lunged to Hermione's left and the dragon on her head released her scalp as she tried to right herself when she dodged Charlie's attack. As soon as her claws were free, Charlie snatched her out of Hermione's hair, dragging her by the throat with one hand while the other hand gave Hermione a little shove to one side.

When the dragon was free of her hair, Charlie opened his mouth and roared like an angry beast right into Ashtari's face as she snapped her jaws at him. Fearing he would end up with fire spewed all over his face, Hermione was surprised when Ashtari went limp in his grip, her flailing body ceasing its struggle.

"Did you… kill her?" Hermione asked fearfully, shocked by the way he'd roared at the beast. He'd sounded just like a real dragon.

"No," Charlie said, releasing the young dragon and watching her drop to the floor. She landed on all four feet before scuttling away in the direction of all the other babies – all of whom were cowering. "Just had to remind her who's boss."

"By… roaring at her?" Hermione asked.

Charlie looked over, that mean expression melting off his face as he smiled at her.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I was there when all these little buggers hatched. Me and the lads always all try to be there when a new batch of eggs hatches. They imprint with their mother, but a residual imprint carries over to each of us, as well. We divide the batches up during times like this when they all need to be cared for but they're beyond the age where their mother's still worry about feeding them."

"But they're still so small… you know, comparatively," she protested, eyeing one of the dragons who was already nearing two meters from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.

"Aye, and they can all fend for themselves in the wild, already. It's only because it's so cold and they would die or be eaten for invading the cave of an adult that they're rounded up and brought along home like this."

"Then why roar?" Hermione asked.

"Because they've been on their own long enough to assert their own dominance, but in here, I'm in charge," he shrugged his shoulders. "If you tried it, they'd eat you alive, but because I was there when they hatched, in their minds, I'm their Dad."

He grinned.

"And even a cranky dragon will mind his Papa," Hermione finished, chuckling.

"Exactly," Charlie said. "Now, let's take a look at that head, shall we? I can see the blood from here."

He moved in closer, invading her personal space and reaching up to card his fingers through her hair.

"They're not too deep," he told her. "But if you ever shave your head, you'll have scars. Let me heal them, real quick, and then we'll go and feed Boris before he…"

Right at that moment there was an earsplitting roar from beyond the door and Hermione had to clap her hands over her ears.

"Before he starts whining," Charlie laughed. "He doesn't like it when his Mum is challenged."

"You're his Mum?" Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Yup," Charlie nodded. "I'm these guys Dad because I've helped raise them, but their mothers still taught them how to hunt and how to survive. I had to teach Boris everything myself."

"Dragons are matriarchal, aren't they?" Hermione asked, following him when he opened the door leading into the next landscape.

Hermione blinked against the harsh sunlight over the desert landscape. An African savannah stretched before her eyes and in the midst of it, lazing on the banks of a small watering hole sat the strangest looking dragon Hermione had ever seen. She squealed when Charlie suddenly snatched hold of her and dragged her to the right just in time for Boris to breathe an enormous jet of fire toward the doorway. The hatchlings beyond all shrieked and hissed as the flames entered their sanctum before Charlie closed the door.

"Easy, Boris," Charlie spoke to the African Chura. "I've got your food."

Boris made a grumbling sound and flopped onto his back.

Unlike most dragons – who tended to resemble enormous lizards, Boris looked more like the biggest, fattest, most brightly colored toad Hermione had ever seen.

"Chura means 'toad', in Swahili," Charlie told her when he caught her astonishment.

The size of a cement truck, Boris was scaled all over, his scales a deep shade of red that matched the red sand of the desert landscape surrounding him. A rusty shade of red like partially dried blood, he was intimidating to say the least, even if he wasn't anywhere near as large as some of the bigger breeds of dragon. His snout was short and wide like a toad's mouth, but when he opened it, he revealed row upon row of razor sharp fangs like a shark's and Hermione shuddered.

"He's pretty harmless," Charlie told her, chuckling at her reaction. "Aren't you, big guy?"

Boris made a grumbling sound again, kicking one of his back legs like he wanted a belly-rub. The sound was something akin to a toad 'croak', only much, much deeper. So deep in made the ground beneath her feet shudder.

"You can rub his belly if you want. You smell like me all over after what we did upstairs. He won't mind," Charlie told her. "Here, Boris? Behave, you hear? I brought someone special to meet you. She's going to rub your belly, alright?"

Boris emitted about grumbling noise and relaxed even more. While Hermione carefully approached the dragon and cautiously reached out a hand to rub his belly, Charlie rounded his head and began holding up hunks of meat. With exact precision, Boris breathed small puffs of fire onto the meat before opening his mouth and letting Charlie hand-feed him.

"Um… Charlie…" Hermione said, frowning when she went to pat Boris with both hands before remembering the condom she still clutched. "About what we did upstairs…"

Charlie looked over at her.

"You're not about to give me the easy-let-down, are you, Granger?" he asked, frowning a little.

"Uh… no," Hermione said. "It's just… um… this?"

She held out her hand in his direction, showing him to balled up condom.

"What?" he frowned, coming closer to investigate. "The rubber?"

"Yes," Hermione said, her cheeks turning pink. "It came off."

Charlie frowned before pulling out the front of his jeans and checking down the front of them to make sure the condom wasn't still on his cock.

"As in… came off when I was getting dressed?" he frowned.

"As in, it was still inside me when you came bolting down here," Hermione replied.

"Hanging out?" Charlie asked, his frown deepening.

"A little," Hermione said, her cheeks scarlet. "I… um… I'm not on the Potion, and I don't have any Morning-After-Potion at my house that isn't at least four years old…"

Charlie's brow furrowed even more.

"Fuck," he whispered before lifting his eyes to stare into her face. "Why is it all so old?"

Hermione was sure she could've cooked an egg on her face, it was so hot with her embarrassment.

"Because until today I hadn't slept with anyone," she confessed quietly.

"Ever?" Charlie's eyes widened, his expression horrified. "Blimey, Hermione. Why didn't you say anything? I must've hurt you, being so rough…?"

"Not ever, you idiot," Hermione rolled her eyes, laughing a little in spite of her mortification. "I wasn't a virgin. I just… hadn't slept with anyone in three and a bit years. Hence, not needing to be on the Potion, or needing Morning-After-Potion on hand."

"Bloody hell, woman. You a saint?" Charlie asked, shaking his head at her and Hermione's heart sank a little, wondering how recently he'd shagged someone else.

"No," she whispered.

Charlie's eyes searched her face carefully for a long moment before he sighed out a heavy breath as he slumped back a little until he leaned against Boris's belly.

"Right," he said. "So, where was this, exactly?"

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, frowning at him. "One edge was poking out and getting caught on the sheets when I slid across the bed, partially pulling it out. The rest was balled up inside me."

"It's got come in it," he pointed out, taking it from her and holding it up to examine it.

"Yeah, well, so does my vagina," Hermione said bluntly.

"How do you know?"

"Because I know what my excretions look and taste like, and I know what latex and lubricant taste like, and I recognize the look and taste of semen, you bonehead," Hermione huffed.

"You… tasted?" Charlie asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Well, I couldn't be a hundred percent certain just by looking," Hermione shrugged defensively, her cheeks getting even hotter. "This time during my cycle things get a bit sticky…"

Charlie's eyes widened.

"You're ovulating?" he asked, beginning to look worried now.

Hermione nodded. "You got that from 'sticky'?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I'm an expert in dragonology, Hermione," he reminded her. "It's kind of my job to know everything from nutrition to breeding, including what to look for in an ovulating female. I _might_ have gotten curious about the human reproductive cycle after I did my research on the dragons…"

He blushed a little.

"Right," Hermione said, unable to keep from smiling a little at the idea of him being as interested in learning as she was.

"How much come would you say ended up inside you?" he asked, frowning at her.

"I don't know," Hermione admitted.

"Can I…?" he stepped toward her, snapping his fingers to Vanish the condom and then peeling off his gloves, indicating to her pants.

Hermione held still, nodding once. Charlie slid his hand down the front of her pants and curled it around, cupping her sex for a moment before burrowing two fingers inside her.

"Heh," Hermione huffed, reaching to grip his arm with one hand when her knees almost buckled.

His free hand moved to her waist, holding her steady before he withdrew his fingers from inside her.

When he pulled his hands from her pants and held it up between them, Hermione blinked. His fingers were coated in sticky white ejaculate.

"Well… shite," Charlie said. "That's definitely mine."

"Yes," Hermione agreed, watching him pull out his wand and use it to clean his hand. "And the biggest issue is that the shops will all be closed tomorrow for Christmas."

"Maybe ask Fleur for some Morning-After-Potion," he suggested.

"She doesn't have any," Hermione told him, shaking her head. "She stopped keeping contraceptives handy when she and Bill started trying for the baby. And she hardly needs them now that she'd pregnant."

"What about Ginny?" Charlie said.

"Ginny's allergic to the Morning-After-Potion. She and Harry have to be super careful – usually triple blocking with The Potion, the Spell, and condoms to avoid situations like this one."

"Well… fuck!" Charlie said. "What about…? Fuck! Why do two of my brothers have to be bloody bent? Percy and Ron will both be useless… What about Fred and George, they're both married to pretty witches?"

"Did you not notice that Angie wasn't drinking this evening?" Hermione asked, raising one eyebrow at him. "I'm pretty sure they have an announcement to make…. Actually, if I know Angelina, she'll surprise Fred with the news tomorrow morning."

"And Luna?" Charlie asked, referring to George's wife.

"Luna's a free spirit," Hermione said quietly. "I can ask her in the morning, but I'm not holding out much hope. She and George are married… the way she would see it, it's up to the Fates. They likely don't use contraceptives at all."

"Bloody hell," Charlie said. "Well… Merlin, I hate to think it, but what about Mum? Maybe check the bathroom cupboard? She's not _that_ old. She and Dad must still use something to keep from popping out any more kids. They've already proved how bloody fertile they are."

"I believe your mother had her tubes tied after she had Ginny," Hermione admitted quietly. "Not by choice…"

Charlie frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"When Fleur was pregnant with Victoire, Molly fretted the entire time that there would be complications and more than once, I heard her say she was terrified Fleur would be forced to resort a C-section for the birth and that it would go badly. That she'd have to have her tubes tied when they cut the wrong section… I think that when she had Ginny, that happened to her. They had to perform a C-Section to prevent her from prolapsing after having so many kids, and the surgeon accidentally cut through one of her fallopian tubes. They weren't able to re-attach it in any way that would allow her to continue having kids."

"Meaning she doesn't need contraceptives… Fuck!" Charlie exclaimed, running a hand through his red hair and searching her face. "What do we do?"

"The shops will be open again on the 27th," Hermione said. "And I'll check with Angelina and Luna. If all else fails, I could try taking one of the out-of-date ones at my place…."

"You'll get sick," Charlie shook his head. "Never take out-of-date potions, Hermione. They're not like muggle pills. The magical ingredients can turn deadly."

"I know," she nodded. "But the alternative…"

"I'd rather you pregnant than dead, _koroleva_ ," Charlie said, reaching up to cup her cheek, shaking his head at her like she was mad.

"But you…" Hermione frowned. "You said not two hours ago that you aren't ready for a family, Charlie. And I'm hardly ready, myself. I have a Foundation to run and somebody trying to get me killed. The last thing I need with someone out to get me is a baby."

"We'll handle it," Charlie told her, his bright blue eyes searching her face for a long moment before he tugged on the front of her shirt and pulled her into his arms.

Hermione burrowed into him needily, her heart in her throat and her mind racing a mile a minute as the full repercussions of getting pregnant started racing through her mind. She might've daydreamed a hundred times about one day marrying Charlie and starting a family with him, but it'd always been a fanciful notion, not a looming fate.

"How?" she asked.

"Get you a potion," Charlie told her. "The Morning-After-Potion is effective if you take it within seventy-two hours, right?"

Hermione nodded.

"Then we'll get you one on the 27th and everything will work out. You'll see," he reassured her, cuddling her to him and leaning back against Boris.

Boris the dragon chose that moment to emit another of those grumbling sounds before he unleashed the worst smelling fart Hermione had ever experienced.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Boris! You bloody feral!" Charlie laughed. "Run, Hermione."

Hermione dashed away from the beast alongside Charlie, laughing in spite of her terror, knowing that the smell was almost impossible to get out of fabric. Charlie was laughing as he pulled the door closed, trapping Boris in his own miasma of toxicity and cutting off the smell before it could spread.

"Come on," he laughed. "The kids are fed. Let's get to bed, yeah? You can dive into that book I gave you and stop worrying yourself so much."

Hermione bit her lip when Charlie held her hands as they crossed the paddock where the baby dragons were now all sprawled all over the place, their bellies full, lulling them to sleep. He waved her ahead of him to climb the stairs out of the trunk.

"Go on up," he said. "I've got to tidy things up in here and fix the latch Boris broke to blast those flames out of here. I'll be up in a bit."

Hermione nodded, frowning a little when he turned away from her to begin cleaning up the chopping board and knife that he must've used to cut the meat for the dragons.

"I'll go and look in the bathroom cupboard for a potion," she said quietly, biting her lip.

Charlie nodded but didn't turn and Hermione's eyes prickled as she turned away and carefully climbed the ladder out of his trunk.

When she reached the top, she closed the lid once more, suspecting Charlie wanted a few minutes to himself. She didn't blame him. He'd taken the news better than she'd thought, but his insistence that they would 'handle' the situation with a potion – and the unspoken implication that there was another potion she could take if it failed – made her realize that despite having just shagged like bunnies, Charlie wasn't in love with her.

She closed her eyes when she reached the hallway, letting herself out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom. She'd hoped when he'd looked so intensely at her while she'd spoken of waiting for him that he might reciprocate her feelings, but it seemed clear now that he didn't. Abortion was hardly the first solution one came up with someone you loved said they might fall pregnant. Tears trickling down her face, Hermione hurried down that many flights of stairs to the bathroom, locking herself inside and lighting the room with her wand.

She ran to the cabinet, searching it for a Morning-After-Potion wildly, shoving things aside as she raided it desperately.

Nothing.

Unless she wanted to attempt to solve the problem with mouth-wash or cotton-tips, she was shit out of luck.

"Fuck!" Hermione screeched before clapping her hand over her mouth, recalling that she wasn't still in Charlie's room and that the bathroom hadn't been Silenced.

Burying both hands in her hair, Hermione stared at her reflection and tried not to hyperventilate.

There was a part of her that _hoped_ she would get pregnant. She'd dreamed of having Charlie Weasley's children for years, and knowing it might soon be a reality made her giddy with the thought, but the pit of dread in her stomach and the ache in her heart at the thought of raising such a child without Charlie's help or approval… it almost tore her apart.

"Fuck!" she said again, a little less loudly.

Making sure the bathroom door was locked, Hermione yanked down her pants and climbed into the bathtub. Running the water, she squatted in the tub, cupping hot water in her hands and scooping her fingers inside herself, trying to wash out the residual come. She barely noticed that she was sobbing as she did so, repeating the actions over and over until her whole body began to ache from the pain of the vicious cleansing. When there was nothing left, she rose to her feet and reached for one of the bath-towels from the fresh pile Molly kept of them on the shelf above the sink. She dried off and redressed herself quickly.

Letting herself out of the bathroom, Hermione thought about waking up George and Luna to check with the blonde woman if she had a potion handy but dismissed it when she heard the grandfather clock in the kitchen begin chiming the hour. Three o'clock. Fuck.

Unsure she could face Charlie again so soon but not wanting to appear a coward, she hurried back up to his bedroom. It was empty. He still had emerged from inside his trunk and Hermione bit her lip as she crossed the room to the bed, the sheets rumpled from their love-making. She wanted to run. Wiping her cheeks and realizing they were still damp, Hermione crossed to the bed and climbed in carefully.

Maybe she should just go home. If he was still in the trunk, he was probably hiding from her. Merlin, she'd seen a cot down there in the supply room. What if he slept down there?

But if she left when Arthur was under the impression she was staying the night, he would ask questions. Then again, if she stayed, Molly would have questions, too.

"Bugger," Hermione whispered. Sitting back up, she swung her legs out of bed and was just rising to her feet clutching the book he'd given her and planning to sneak home when the lid of Charlie's trunk creaked open and the red haired Dragon Tamer emerged.

He took one look at her guilty expression – undoubtedly noticing her swollen eyes and tearstained cheeks – and he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Going somewhere?" he asked, his voice hard and Hermione pressed her lips together guiltily.

"I should go home," she told him quietly. "Your mother will have questions if I sleep over. Everyone will."

"Dad will have questions if you leave," he told her.

"Less than everyone else if I sleepover in your bed, Charlie. You know what they're like. Fred and George will crack jokes all day, and Fleur will give me her smug expression since she's been insisting we should shag for years. Bill will give me that I-told-you-so look, and Ron will probably crack a shit about his ex-girlfriend shagging his big brother. If I leave, Arthur will say something about thinking I was going to stay and that will be the end of it."

"You're running away," Charlie accused.

Hermione didn't bother denying it. How could she? He'd caught her red-handed trying to sneak out, so she wouldn't have to face the further embarrassment of continuing to make small talk with him. Hanging her head, Hermione simply stood and waited for him to say something else. She didn't have any excuses to offer and if she was being honest, the lump in her throat was becoming painful with how badly she wanted to cry all over again.

"Is this about Ron?" Charlie asked after several long minutes of silence.

Hermione lifted her head, frowning at him.

"No," she said. "Why would this have anything to do with Ron?"

Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"You just tried to use his reaction to finding out you shagged me as a good excuse to leave," he pointed out. "So, the question is, are you running away because you're afraid of his reaction? Or did you only shag me in the first place because you've still got feelings for him and don't know what to do with them now that he's admitted to himself that he's bent?"

Hermione's mouth opened in surprise.

"You think I slept with you to… what? Get him back?" Hermione asked, scoffing just a little.

"Did you?" Charlie asked.

Hermione shot him a positively scathing look, curling her lip at him in anger.

"Believe me, Weasley," she bit out coldly. "What you and I just did had absolutely _nothing_ to do with Ronald."

"Then why are you running?" he wanted to know. "And don't give me the excuse about everyone finding out you shagged me. If you get pregnant, they're going to bloody know."

"Yeah, well, you're the one pointing out that the potion to avoid that can be taken for up to seventy-two hours, Charlie," Hermione said bitterly. "And considering the cleanout I just handled in the bathroom, the likelihood of pregnancy is practically non-existent, now. So, to avoid the awkwardness of standing here and fighting with you, given that you've been hiding in your trunk this whole time, I thought I'd go. You clearly don't want me here."

"And you have that impression because… why?" Charlie asked raising his eyebrows. "Because after you approached me to inform me that we fucked up a little bit just now - looking terrified, I might add – I suggested options to handle the situation? Because I've argued with my parents all evening about settling down and having kids, and now you're telling me that I might've just knocked you up? Because I specifically said downstairs when you were asking about it that a wife and kids are still in my 'someday' box because I'm still an immature bloody dickhead running after lizards that want to kill me? You're going to run away because of that? Potentially with my kid in your belly? That's a good way to handle this?"

"Well, what do you want me to do, Charlie?" Hermione demanded. "I've made my position in all of this perfectly clear."

"Oh, have you?" Charlie asked. "And what position is that? That you don't want anyone to know you fucked me? What? You thought I'd make a good, dirty little secret, did you? Charlie comes home once a year and he's the big brother of the man I'm still hung up, I'll fuck him and sneak off; no one will know."

Hermione gasped in outrage, stamping her foot and raising her finger to point at him furiously.

"If that's what you think, Charles Weasley, then you need to pull your head out of the bloody dragon's arse," Hermione hissed angrily. "Which part of my not having fucked anyone in three years lends itself to a secret tryst over a once-off bloody shag? Which part of my being the one to suggest to Ron that he was bent in the first place lends itself to being hung up on him? Believe me, I was glad to be shot of the little shit. I no longer have to put up with someone nagging me about putting his dick up my bum, and I no longer have to listen to incessant chatter about Quidditch box scores. He's Goyle's problem now, so the big buffoon can deal with the socks in the bottom of the bed and the whining and the chewing-with-his-bloody-mouth-open bollocks.

"I'm not running away because I don't want your family to know we fucked. Believe me, I'd gladly shout it from the rooftops, and what's more, the whole lot of them will probably congratulate me for finally gathering the bloody courage to do more than perve on your from across the room! I'm leaving because _you_ aren't ready for a kid and if I stay, I'm just going to cry over that very fact. Again!"

She stomped her foot again for emphasis, scowling at him hatefully before shuffling her book tighter under her arm and beginning to turn away.

" _You_ said you weren't ready for a kid!" Charlie exploded, and Hermione spun back to find that he'd apparently lost his temper. He pointed at her furiously. " _You_ said that you have a foundation to run. _You_ said that you have someone out to get you and that having a kid will complicate that!"

"You were the one who said we'd _handle it_ , Charlie," Hermione snarled in return. "How much clearer do you need to be?"

He narrowed his eyes on her.

"I meant we'd handle it, as it's we would get through this," he snarled, stomping closer to her. "If you think for a single second that I was implying abortion by saying _handle it_ , then you don't bloody know me, Granger."

"Meaning what?" Hermione demanded, too angry to let his words about getting through it sink in.

"Meaning that I might be pro-choice but if you think for a hot bloody minute that I'd ever demand or push or even ask you to terminate my fucking sprog then you're a bloody moron!"

Hermione scowled at him, unsure what to say in response.

"You were the one who came down there in a panic, Hermione," Charlie went on. "You were the one who suggested the morning after potion in the first place. And since you did, I assumed you didn't want to risk having a bloody sprog with me. So, I offered other suggestions to see that goal come to fruition."

"What are you saying?" she asked. "That if I get pregnant you won't… feel like I've trapped you into something? That you think I shouldn't take the potion?"

Charlie's eyes narrowed as though he smelled a trap, though it hadn't been her intention to lay one.

"It's your body, Hermione," he told her quietly, some of the anger tightening his features beginning to dissipate. "It's your life."

"It'd be your kid, Charlie. It's your life, too," Hermione pointed out. "And you've made your stance on the matter clear. You're not ready."

"I wasn't ready when the need for going out and wooing a witch into marriage and one day coaxing her into having some kids was looming over me with my mother's voice echoing in my head," Charlie argued.

"And… what?" she asked. "If the hard-yards aren't necessary, you're just fine with it?"

Charlie looked away, his jaw clenching and his hands balling into fists.

"Well?" she demanded, setting aside her book and crossing her arms over her chest.

"You said the chance of you getting pregnant now is practically non-existent," Charlie reminded her. "So, I don't see why we're fighting. You've been bloody crying you're so scared, Hermione. What does what I think or feel on the subject even matter?"

Hermione frowned, her lips pulled down at the corners and her brow furrowing. He looked like he was holding something back. Something he didn't want to tell her, and her stomach flipped, her heart beginning to pound a little harder inside her chest.

"You… we're not even an item, Charlie," Hermione told him. "You pounced on an easy lay because you could, even though we both know you're not interested in me… are you trying to tell me that _if_ I get pregnant you want to… keep the baby?"

Charlie's blue eyes snapped to her face and he scowled at her for a long moment.

"An easy lay? Is that what you said?" he asked quietly, his brow furrowing so fiercely that for a moment it looked like he only had one eyebrow, rather than two.

"You don't need to lie to me, Charlie," Hermione told him. "You've never looked sideways at me before, and tonight I guess I was a little too forward, and you…"

She broke off when Charlie uncrossed his arms and closed the distance between the two of them, both his hands coming up to tangle into her hair as his lips crashed down on hers.

"Hmm," Hermione hummed in surprise, unsure how to react to suddenly being kissed.

He snogged her until she couldn't breathe, his tongue tangling with hers, his lips hard against her own. When he pulled back, he was breathing hard and he glared down into her face.

"You're not an easy lay, Hermione," Charlie told her sternly. "And if you get pregnant, I'll support whatever decision you make. If you don't want to take the potion, then don't. If you want to take it, then do so. But _don't_ stand there and point that bloody finger at me whilst trying to tell me what you think I feel or what I think. And don't ever call yourself easy ever again. Not in my hearing."

He released her, stepping back before he turned away from her completely. Hermione watched him drop his jeans as he crossed the room before he cast a cleaning charm on his body, and pulled on his pyjama pants that matched hers. He didn't bother with the shirt before rounding the bed and peeling open the covers. When he was lying in bed, he looked over at her where she was still standing by the door.

"Well?" he asked. "Are you going or staying?"

"If I go?" Hermione asked, raising her chin.

"Then go," he shrugged his shoulders, though she noticed the way his jaw tightened and the frown lines around his mouth deepened. "Go, and I'll see you tomorrow when you come by, or when I come to the clinic to collect the Frostfang eggs."

Hermione frowned at him.

"And if I want to stay?" she asked, watching him closely.

She blinked when he flipped open her side of the bed and held his arms open invitingly.

"Then come here," he said gruffly. "And get the light."

Hesitating for a long moment, Hermione knew that the most logical thing to do would be to leave. She knew it was. If she left, she wouldn't have to worry about the knowing looks and the teasing and the probing questions from his family members tomorrow. But Merlin, if she stayed… if she stayed, they might figure out a way to make something of this. And if they couldn't… well… at least she'd always be able to look back fondly on a night spent curled into his strong arms.

" _Nox_ ," she whispered, flicking her wand to douse all the lights before padding across the room and crawling under the covers.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: *Scuttles in, rubbing one eye tiredly***

 **This being back at work stuff is bullshit. Zero stars. Do not recommend.**

 ***Hands over the chapter that made her giggle and feel better throughout the week whilst working on it***

 **xx-Kitten.**

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Seven**

* * *

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

"UNCLE CHARLIE, WAKE UP!"

Charlie Weasley jolted awake with a groan as the sound of his niece and his dead best friend's son began bashing on his bedroom door.

"UNCLE CHARLIE, THERE'S PRESENTS!" Teddy Lupin shouted through the door.

"SANTA CAME, UNCLE CHARLIE. COME SEE!" Victoire Weasely called.

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

The pounding on the door and the shouting continued and Charlie groaned into his pillow. Lying face down on the mattress and regretting last night's Bloody Firestorm, Charlie was in _no_ mood for boisterous children or early morning. Mornings were the worst time of the bloody day, if you asked him.

He was just about to bury his head under the pillow to block out the noise when a grizzling sound filled his ears and Charlie froze. Something was on his back. Holding perfectly still, his hands searched under the pillow for his wand just as the thing lying directly on top of him shifter slightly. Soft breasts clad in warm flannel slid against his back and someone's long curly hair slipped over his shoulder to tickle his nose.

"Hermione?" Charlie asked sleepily, recalling that the witch he'd invited to bed last night was also present.

She grizzled again, grumbling at the noise as the children continued pounding on the door and Charlie realized that not only was Hermione Granger asleep in his bed, she was asleep on top of him.

Stretched out on his back, her legs balanced on top of his own and her cheek pillowed right in between his shoulder blades, the little witch was using him as her own personal mattress.

"More sleep," she whined, kicking one of her legs a little and inadvertently digging her toenails into his calf muscle.

"GET OUT OF BED, UNCLE CHARLE!" Victoire screeched from the other side of the door, the children's knocking becoming more insistent.

"Fuck off," Hermione grumbled against his shoulder blades and Charlie began to laugh. She grizzled all the more as his body began to shake beneath hers, but Charlie couldn't help it.

"Hermione?" he asked quietly.

"Mmmm?" she hummed, though she sounded none too happy about it.

"Comfortable?"

"Too loud," Hermione complained, her voice thick with sleep. She snuggled her cheek against the bare skin of his back and Charlie grinned, peering over his shoulder at the woman.

She was still mostly asleep, her eyes closed, her hair all in a mess, her body lax atop his own.

He'd been surprised when she'd joined him in bed last night when he'd given her the choice to stay or go after she'd grown so upset at the broken condom incident and it's impending repercussions.

"Alright, kids, out of the way," Charlie heard Bill's voice from beyond the door and he winced to realise the bastard was only too keen to subject him to the horrors of vicarious parenthood.

"It's locked, Dad," Victoire told her father, her tone indignant.

"Noooo," Hermione groaned, turning her face the other way as though to hide from the notion of being interrupted.

"I know, darling, but Daddy's a Curse Breaker. There's nothing I can't open," Bill said, sounding entirely too smug for Charlie's liking.

The sound of spellwork being performed beyond the door followed a creak of the rusted hinges on the door and Charlie blinked at his brother, trying to hide his grin. Bill's eyes widened in surprise to find that Charlie wasn't alone.

"Uh… looks like he's not in here, kids," Bill said, pulling the doorknob and trying to close it again before they could burst in.

He was no match for the pair of excited children determined to drag their uncle downstairs – likely having been told there would be no presents until the whole family was there to enjoy them.

"Uncle Charlie!" Victoire said, shoving past her father's legs and forcing the door open.

Hermione grizzled all the more and Charlie laughed when Victoire stopped dead at the sight of whatever was on his back. With her head turned away from the door and her body hidden beneath the covers, Charlie imagined it must look like he had a terribly hairy back.

"Uncle… Charlie?" Victoire asked, looking alarmed.

Charlie watched the young girl take a step back, colliding first with Teddy, and then with Bill's legs in her apparent terror.

"It's just Aunt Hermione, darling," Charlie said without lifting his head from the pillow, not willing to move too far when the delicious curves of a beautiful witch were pressed so intimately against him.

"Aunt Hermione?" Victoire asked, frowning.

"Noooo," Hermione whined against, burrowing her face against Charlie's back like she might use her nose to dig her way into his skin just to hide from the children.

Bill began to laugh at her reaction.

"What are you doing, Aunt Hermione?" Teddy wanted to know. "Why are you squashing Uncle Charlie?"

"Squashing?" Hermione grumbled in outrage, turning her head back to glare through one eye at the boy. "You calling me fat, Teddy?"

Charlie laughed.

"You're squishing Uncle Charlie," Victoire informed her, frowning.

"Keep making so much noise and I'll squish you, kid," Hermione threatened and Charlie laughed out loud, making her grumble all the more.

Clearly she was _not_ a morning person. When his laughed caused her to jiggled around too much, she clambered off him to the far side of the bed away from the children, burrowing down beside him and putting the pillows over her head.

"I don't think Aunt Hermione's much of a morning person, Vic," Charlie told the girl.

"Too bad," Victoire said without sympathy. "It's Christmas, and there's presents, and Gran says we can't open them until you come down for breakfast, Uncle Charlie."

Charlie would swear her heard Hermione mumble "Spiteful little bitch" into the mattress.

"It's holidays, Vic," Charlie complained, though he suspected he was going to have no choice but to drag his bum out of bed. "Holidays are for spending the whole day in bed."

"But there's presents," Teddy protested.

"Presents are overrated," Charlie said.

"I'll remember that when your birthday comes, shall I?" Bill suggested, propping his shoulder in the doorjam and looking mightily amused.

"Remember this, ass-face," Charlie said before blowing a raspberry at him.

Her had to hide his face in his pillow again when Victoire gasped dramatically.

"Daddy, Uncle Charlie said a naughty word," she tattled.

"Dobber," Hermione accused. "Dibber dobbing little brat."

Apparently Hermione was definitely not a morning person, Charlie snorted into his pillow, listening to her continuing to mutter a string of unkind things about half-French little harpies, morning, birds, and wretched Curse Breakers.

"Oh, I'm a Curse Breaker, there's nothing I can't open. We'll see about that when I lock you in a trunk and feed you to hungry dragons, Bill Weasley," she sneered under her breath and Charlie couldn't help but laugh.

"Maybe we should let Uncle Charlie gets dressed, kids," Bill said.

"But Daddy, he said a naughty word," Victoire complained.

"I know, darling, but Mère says naughty words too when you wake her up early, doesn't she?" Bill asked.

"Mère would never say naughty words, Daddy," Victoire protested in defense of her mother.

"Just because she says them in French doesn't make them less naughty," Bill muttered, rolling his eyes. "Come on. Uncle Charlie's awake and on his way down for breakfast. He and Aunt Hermione don't like mornings, so why don't you run down and tell Gran to put the kettle on, yeah?"

"I'll race you," Teddy goaded the little blonde girl.

"No… running on the stairs," Bill began to call out as both children made a run for it, stampeding down the stairs with all the racket of a herd of elephants. "Urgh. Whatever. What's another Bone-Mending spell?"

"Oooh, what's another bone-mending spell," Hermione sneered mockingly as she mimicked him.

"Have some fun last night, you two?"

"I'll have fun pitching you out the window," Hermione threatened and Charlie laughed again.

She mocked his laugh as she repeated it back to him too, pulling her head from under the pillows to glare at him and Charlie lost it. He couldn't help it.

"Maybe give us a few minutes?" Charlie asked of Bill.

"Mmhmm," Bill hummed knowingly, looking beyond amused at finding Charlie in bed with Hermione. "If you take too long, Mum will send the kids up again."

"Then lock the door behind you," Charlie smirked at his brother and shot him a wink before rolling back toward Hermione and pulling her into his arms, rolling the two of them until he was stretched on top of her.

He pinned her hands to the mattress when she growled and tried to shove him off, and Bill laughed, pulling the door closed with a shake of his head. Charlie was only too grateful when he locked it behind him.

"Off," Hermione grumbled without much heat, looking like she very much wanted to go back to sleep.

"Oh, so you can sleep literally on top of me all night…" he began, grinning into her face and unable to keep from noticing how bloody beautiful she was.

"Urghhmmm," she replied unintelligibly, her eyes barely open and her expression scrunched into a face of displeasure.

Charlie chuckled, shaking his head and peering down at the curly-haired witch with intrigue.

"I suppose we'd better get up, eh?" he asked when she closed her eyes once more, apparently too tired to push the issue of him getting off of her.

She grizzled again at the notion and Charlie grinned.

"Tired this morning, _koroleva_?" he asked, wondering if maybe she was feeling so uncooperative as a result of their fight last night.

"We were up until after three," Hermione informed him, her voice thick with sleep.

"Mmmm," Charlie hummed. "More sleep would be nice. But you know those little blighters will just invade again if we don't head down."

"Your mother will make them," Hermione agreed, looking very much like she wanted to tell Molly Weasley to go jump in a lake. "Maybe I should've gone home, after all."

Charlie eye's narrowed on the witch, though she didn't open her eyes as she said so.

"Maybe I can prove why staying was the better choice?" he offered in reply. "Ease you into the day, as it were."

She cracked one eye open a sliver at the prospect and Charlie had to fight the urge to grin at the knowledge that she wanted him.

"I haven't had a chance to speak to Luna about a Morning-After Potion," she reminded him quietly, recalling last night's hiccup.

Charlie shrugged. "So, what? Might as well make having to ask her worthwhile, yeah?"

The sleepy little smile that curled across Hermione's face made him grin and Charlie leaned into her, claiming her lips hungrily. She kissed him back lazily, her hands lifting to card through his hair and down over his shoulders like she simply couldn't resist touching him. Unable to resist her, himself, Charlie lifted off her far enough to peel her shirt off over her head, breaking their kiss before he turned his attention to her bared breasts. She arched into him when he drew one pebbled nipple into his mouth, sighing softly like she adored being touched in such a way and Charlie was determined to draw more of those sweet cries from her.

He took his time making love to every inch of her with his mouth, slowly kissing his way over her chest and down her stomach, peeling her pants down her legs until she was naked beneath him. She cried out when he pushed her legs apart and leaned between them, his tongue delving inside of her and lapping at her flesh teasingly. Her fingers knotted in his hair and Charlie grinned against her skin. Merlin, he loved the taste of this witch.

"Gods, Charlie," she whispered breathlessly as he fucked her with his tongue until she was right on the precipice, teetering on the edge of bliss before he stopped and grinned at her over the rim of her pubic bone.

"Tease," she accused him, pulling at him and trying to drag him back up her body.

"Pass me those condoms, yeah?" he said, nodding to the box on the nightstand.

She reached for them quickly, handing them over and Charlie was quick to roll one on, supposing that last night's issue best not be repeated this morning.

"They're coming," Hermione said quietly as he positioned himself over her, poised to impale her on his cock.

Charlie cocked his head, listening to the sound of childish shouting and pounding feet on the stairs from beyond the bedroom.

"Better be quick then, yeah?" Charlie grinned before driving into her and drawing a low moan from her lips.

He didn't mess about with taking his time or letting her grow accustomed to the feel of him inside her. There wasn't time and he'd already worked her so close to the edge that she would go over with little trouble. What was more, the feel of her warm body clinging so desperately to his own was going to bring him undone.

Thrusting quickly, the clench of her body around his own made Charlie's eyes cross and he kissed her neck hungrily, nipping and sucking, drawing blood to the surface and getting lost in the sweet scent of her skin and the warmth of her flesh and the vice-grip she had on his cock. She clung to him, her nails digging into his back, her hips arching into every powerful thrust and Charlie nibbled her earlobe.

"Oh, god, Charlie," she groaned softly when her whole body began to spasm, clenching even tighter, wringing the orgasm from him as she flew off the edge and into the waiting sea of bliss.

"Fuck," Charlie grunted against her ear, his thrusts becoming erratic as he lost control.

He collapsed on top of her when he was done, enjoying the way she trailed the tips of her fingers over his back again and again, swirling in patterns over his skin.

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," Charlie murmured against her ear when he'd caught his breath.

She laughed softly, sounding completely content.

"Mmm, Happy Christmas, Charlie," she replied, turning her head and kissing his cheek.

"UNCLE CHARLIE!" children screeched from beyond the door, ruining the tender moment completely.

Charlie groaned, curling his arms around his witch and burying his face against her neck.

"Insistent, aren't they?" Hermione mused mildly.

"Should pitch them both out the bloody window," Charlie grumbled. "There's a lot of fresh powder down there. They'd bounce."

Hermione laughed.

"Mmm, but you'd never hear the end of it from your mother, and the children would likely want you to do it again," she pointed out.

Charlie grumbled again.

"I still need to feed the kids," he said.

"Yes, I think that's why they're yelling and bashing on the door," Hermione chuckled.

"No, not them. The dragons," he clarified.

"Can it wait until after those two have opened their gifts?" Hermione asked. "You only fed them a few hours ago, and the last thing you want is Victoire and Teddy discovering that you have dragons in your trunk. You'll be having to take them down there to play with the little beasts if they find out you've got them, which would completely undo your lesson last night about dragons making lousy house-pets."

Charlie groaned again, nodding his head as he rolled off her, making sure this time to take the condom with him. He vanished it with a snap of his fingers, wanting nothing more than to pull Hermione into his arms and grab a few more hours of sleep.

"UNCLE CHARLIE! LET US IN!" Victoire Weasley screeched from beyond the door and Charlie glared in that direction, thinking unkind thoughts about his niece right in that moment.

"We'd better go down," Hermione sighed, getting to her feet and beginning to dress quickly.

Charlie grinned when she put the pyjamas he'd given her back on, obviously not interested in last night's clothing this morning.

"Mmm," Charlie grumbled. "Even if only to get you one of those bloody potions. I'm definitely not ready for that kind of screeching ruining my every morning."

Hermione laughed softly.

"No, I don't think I am, either," she confessed, and Charlie watched the way she bit her lip, looking sheepish. "Um… about that… last night, I was… well… a complete shrew. I don't know what came over me. I'm so sorry. You must think me completely barmy."

Charlie hid a smile as he pulled his shirt on over his head.

"You were panicking, _koroleva_ ," he reminded her. "It happens. Don't worry about it, yeah? If you do get pregnant, we'll figure it out, alright?"

She nodded.

"But we're agreed it would be a bad idea?" she asked in a small voice and Charlie frowned a little.

The truth was, when she'd told him last night that the condom had come off and that she was ovulating and might very well end up pregnant, he hadn't known what to think. He hadn't been lying when he'd said that a wife and children were still a 'someday' plan for him, but there could be no mistake that a small part of him had roared to life when she'd told him.

"I…" Charlie frowned. "I don't want to put pressure on you either way, Hermione."

She frowned at him.

"Giving me your opinion and putting pressure on me are different things, Charlie," she pointed out. "I'm intending to ask Luna if she has a Morning-After potion – and it's occurred to me overnight that we keep a stock of fresh ones at the clinic. It's an unfortunate fact that many young women who are afflicted with vapirism and lycanthropy are often sexually assaulted during the attack that infects them. If Luna doesn't have one with her, I can grab one on our way to collect the Frostfangs to take to Mr Scamander. That being said, the potion isn't a guarantee that pregnancy won't occur… so I'd like to know your opinion on children, and me, should I become pregnant anyway."

Charlie sighed, his hand lifting to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn't know what to tell her. He'd never put a lot of thought into kids or a family, no matter his mother's urgings.

"I know I'm not ready for that," he nodded toward the children pounding on his bedroom door incessantly. "But I… I won't lie to you, _koroleva_. When you told me last night that the condom came off and that there was a chance you might get pregnant, the part of me that still thinks I'm a sixteen year old dickhead was terrified. But there was another part of me that was excited. The truth is, it's likely that the only way I'll get 'round to kids and a wife will be the result of a happy accident like this one, love."

Hermione watched him curiously, her eyes tracing over his face like she didn't know what to make of his admission.

"Even if the accident was with me?" she asked in a whisper.

Charlie shrugged his shoulders. "If I didn't fancy you, I wouldn't have fucked you, _koroleva_. And let's be honest, any kid of mine is likely to be as reckless with the beasts as I am, eh? Wouldn't hurt to have some of your brains balancing all that recklessness out, you know."

He shot her a wink, dangerously close to admitting that if he had to have kids with anyone, he'd like to have them with her, someday. Maybe not right now, but if the Fates decided that now was the right time and she got pregnant with his sprog, well, Charlie wasn't so sure he'd complain all that much about his lot in life.

"So… if I'm…" she trailed off suggestively.

Charlie shrugged again.

"If you are, we'll figure it out, yeah? You don't even have to take that potion if you don't want to, Hermione. It's your body and it's your life. My not being ready right now isn't reason enough to snuff out the possibility, eh? I'm a bit of a ponce who doesn't know what's good for me, so… you never know…"

He shrugged again.

"UUUNNNNCCCLLLEEE CCCHHHAAARRRLLLIIIEEE!"

Hermione winced at the particularly loud screech that she felt sure would wake poor Remus and Tonks in their sodding graves, the way those two children were howling.

"If a sprog was going to turn out anything like that, I'm afraid I'd pitch it out a window," she confessed, shaking her head a laughing. "Even if they did have my brains and your recklessness."

"Course, we could always teach it _not_ to be an entitled little shit," Charlie suggested, looping his arm around her shoulders as he crossed the room before yanking open the door and steering them both to one side, allowing Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley – who'd been in the process of attempting to shoulder-barge the door – to stumble and fall in a heap in the doorway.

"Well, I suppose that's an option," Hermione giggle and Charlie was pleased to see her smiling once more

"Uncle Charlie! Uncle Charlie!" the children crowed happily, apparently not at all put out over their fall, and only too pleased to have their uncle finally out of bed.

"You two need to learn some manners," Charlie informed them. "And I don't see anyone carrying me a bloody cuppa, so someone's bum needs twitching."

"Gran's made tea in the kitchen," Victoire offered.

"And you two thought making a racket would be a good idea _without_ bringing me a cup?" Charlie demanded of the children. "You didn't think I got so good at wrestling dragons by being a nice bloke, did you? And if one of my dragons gave me the sort of demanding shit you two just did, I'd pound them. In fact, I think you both need a good hiding."

Hermione laughed when Charlie released her to playfully lunge at the children. They both ran for it, screaming as they raced back down the stairs.

"You'd have to refrain from threatening you own child every day, of course," she pointed out when he looped his arm around her once more and Charlie grinned, turning a little and dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

"I could be _persuaded_ to be nice," he suggested, winking at her.

Hermione laughed.

"Was I not persuasive enough this morning?" she asked, raising one eyebrow.

Charlie smirked, recalling the feel of her luscious body under his hands and under his tongue.

"Mmm, without those two little shits interrupting, I'm certain you could have been much more persuasive, _koroleva_ ," he murmured.

"I'd hate to spoil you too much," she replied airily as they made their way downstairs and into the kitchen. "Wouldn't want you pining for me when you return to Romania, now would we?"

Charlie bit his lip to keep from telling her that it was too late, and that he already did pine for every time they were parted.

* * *

 **NOTE: So, I also have a published novel, in case anyone is interested in reading it. Search "PARANORMAL DIVISION: AWAKENING by Ellie J Duck" on Amazon to check it out. And you know... It's my birthday this coming week. I might be hosting an online book sale and would love you all to death for buying, reading, and reviewing...**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: *Shuffles in, forehead aglow with a bright red hand-print from frequent face-palming***

 ***Mutters: "This was SUPPOSED to be an open-and-shut Christmas Fluff fic."***

 ***Sighs as she hands over the newest chapter***

 ***Curses the muse for a traitor as she shuffles off***

* * *

 **Home for the Holidays**

 _By Kittenshift17_

* * *

 **Chapter Eight**

* * *

"Daddy, Uncle Charlie said he was going to pound us!" Victoire Weasley tattled on her uncle to her father when she dashed into the kitchen, out of breath and with a skinned elbow from loosing her footing on the stairs running with Teddy.

"He said he'd give us a hiding," Teddy nodded, also puffing, his hair bright purple as he leaned against the table trying to catch his breath while his godfather nuzzled into his godmother.

"And you'd bloody deserve it after that racket up there," Ron grumbled sleepily from his seat at the table where he was trying to keep his eyes open and failing rather miserably.

"That's what Uncle Charlie said," Teddy nodded, frowning a little.

Hermione came to a stop in the kitchen to find everyone else already there, scattered about the space in various stages of wakefulness. Charlie's arm was still wrapped around her shoulders and though she'd been teasing him, she realized suddenly that they were wearing matching pyjamas and everyone was going to know just where she'd spent the night.

"Hermione?" Harry asked, spotting her when he lifted his head from where he'd been snuggling his cheek against the top of Ginny's head affectionately. "I didn't hear you arrive, love. Happy Christmas."

Hermione smiled a little, adoring her friend for being so utterly oblivious, sometimes.

"Happy Christmas, Harry," Hermione offered, rather than correcting him on her 'arrival' at the Burrow for the morning.

Of course, she hardly needed to with two tattling children on the loose.

"She didn't arrive, Uncle Harry," Victoire said, somewhat sneeringly, in Hermione's opinion. "She never left. She was crushing Uncle Charlie up there."

"Crushing?" Charlie scoffed immediately, apparently not at all concerned at having his family know just where she'd spent the night. "Her? Tiny little witch like that?"

"Thank you," Hermione mumbled, blushing and looking at her feet.

"Back up to your old tricks, love?" Harry chuckled.

"What tricks?" Hermione asked, frowning at her best friend in confusion.

"She slept on your back, didn't she, Charlie?" Harry grinned, appealing to the Dragon Tamer.

"Mmm," Charlie hummed and from the smug smile on his face, he couldn't be happier about that very fact. "Done it before, has she?"

"Not in years," Harry shook his head. "Not since we were on the run, Horcrux hunting."

"What are you talking about, Harry?" Ron raised his eyebrows, still looking mostly asleep, though that might be owed to the sneaky way Goyle was trailing his fingertips over Ron's back through his pyjamas.

"After you left, when it got really cold, we'd sometimes share the cot for warmth," Harry shrugged. "A few times, when she was really tired and weighed down from carrying the Horcrux, I'd wake up with Hermione sprawled across my back."

"Naked?" Goyle asked.

Harry laughed.

"We don't all sleep in the nude like Ron does, mate," Harry said good-naturedly. "No, it was always completely innocent. Fully clothed, no funny business… she just… slept on my back."

"Well, now I don't feel so special," Charlie said, his arm slithering from Hermione's shoulders. "Morning, Mum. Happy Christmas, yeah? Any chance of a coffee?"

Molly Weasley – who, until they'd arrived had been happily cooking to feed her large family – stood limply clutching an egg-flip, her mouth hanging open as she looked between her second son and the girl that she'd been sure her sixth son would someday marry. Charlie approached and patted her shoulder in a way she assumed he intended to be reassuring, but that mostly just confused her all the more.

Hermione… and… Charlie?

How could this be? They… just last night, they'd argued…

Sensing that this would not be the opportune moment to demand answers out of Charlie – knowing he could be as cantankerous as one of his dragons in the morning until he had a nice strong cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast – Molly blinked and tried to contain her curiosity and confusion.

"Happy Christmas, dear," she said mildly, the words coming out a little strangled as she tried valiantly to regain her equilibrium. "There's only instant coffee, I'm afraid. The can is over by the kettle."

Her eyes traced over her son when he nodded before he sauntered in the direction of the kettle and set about fixing himself a coffee. He didn't look any more disheveled than usual, and his neck and ears weren't aglow with embarrassment despite Victoire having outed the 'secret' of Hermione sleeping over.

Perhaps it had been innocent.

Hermione had spent the night many times before, of course, and she was always welcome. Perhaps she had simply decided to stay and, with no spare rooms or beds available, had accepted a gallant and gentlemanly off from Charlie that they share his bed. It was plausible. She doubted very much that any of her sons would ever do anything untoward in regard to a potential partner, or a friend. Molly frowned to herself as she turned back to the bacon and sausage she was frying up for their breakfast.

Hermione and Charlie?

Charlie and Hermione?

No. Surely not. There was nothing there. Molly would've noticed by now if there was. They might share an unhealthy interest in magical creatures, but surely there was nothing more between them. Shaking her head to herself, Molly resolved to put it out of her mind for the time being.

"Need coffee," Hermione could be heard muttering when the children began to nag about it being present time now that everyone was accounted for and out of bed.

Molly watched out the corner of her eye as Charlie fished a second mug from the high shelf and began fixing Hermione a cup of coffee too, apparently hearing the young woman's assertion and willing to fix it.

"So, you slept over, eh Hermione?" Fred piped up from the table only after the witch had lifted her freshly made mug of coffee to her lips and taken a few liberal gulps.

"What's it to you?" Hermione asked, somewhat defensively.

"Been a long time since you slept over in the Burrow, hasn't it?" George asked.

"As long as whenever you and Ron called it quits, I'd reckon," Fred agreed.

"Do you have a point?" Hermione wanted to know, narrowing her eyes on the twins.

"I see you're just a friendly as ever first thing in the mornings," Ron commented, looking somewhat amused.

"Like you're any better?" Hermione shot back.

"All I'm saying is, let's not even consider kids, yeah Greg?" Ron appealed to his boyfriend and Molly winced at the very thought of any one of her children refraining from the wonders of parenthood.

"I prefer sleep," Goyle grumbled, nodding his head in agreement when Ron twisted slightly, pillowing his cheeks against Goyle's broad back.

"And uninterrupted… shenanigans," Ron agreed, darting a look at the children when they came bursting back into the kitchen, impatient for presents.

"Yeah," Goyle agreed.

"Both of those things are definitely preferable to noisy brats," Charlie agreed, nudging Hermione with his elbow when she began vaguely searching for something.

Molly frowned a little more as she watched Charlie hand over the bowl of sugar cubes to the witch, who proceeded to dump two lumps into her coffee before using her index finger to stir it like a complete heathen. When she took her next mouthful, she sighed, and Molly noticed the way she inadvertently leaned into Charlie's side.

"Please can we open our presents now?" Victoire demanded, her hands on her hips as she glared at them all from the doorway into the living room.

"Blimey you two are whiny," Fred grumbled.

"Bloody annoying," George agreed.

"Boys," Molly scolded. "Be nice. You were just as eager for gifts in your youth."

"As though we're no longer youthful?" George piped up indignantly.

"As though we're now rendered to the realm of old geezers?" Fred huffed.

"What does she take us for?" George asked.

"Codgers?" Fred suggested.

"Old farts?" George wanted to know.

"Grumpy old men whose best days are far behind them?" said Fred

"And before we've even given her grandchildren," George said contrarily.

"Well, that's a mother's love for you, isn't it?" Fred grumbled. "No longer adorable enough for cheek pinching and so we're just cast aside."

"Unwanted."

"Unloved."

"Forgotten."

"Replaced."

"You'll both need replacing in the bloody family if you two don't shut it," Charlie threatened darkly, scowling over the rim of his coffee.

"Hear that, Gred?" George cried.

"Death threats! And on Christmas, too," Fred gasped, clutching his chest as though wounded.

"Some family," George grumbled.

Molly opened her mouth to put a lid on their dramatics, but before she could say a word, Luna reached over and patted George's cheek comfortingly, smiling vaguely.

"Did you know you've got a wrackspurt, darling?" she asked dreamily, looking rather intrigued. "It's gone in your ear and making you forget that we all love you."

George opened his mouth to tell her they were only joking, before looking over at Fred helplessly, frowning and shaking his head. Fred rolled his eyes, surreptitiously smoothing a hand over Angelina's back as though grateful he'd married a sensible woman.

"How do I get rid of it, love?" George asked of his wife, smiling at her adoringly and making Molly remember that for all her oddities, her son really did love the blonde witch.

"I'm not sure," Luna said. "Maybe if I…"

She went up on her toes and pressed her lips to George ear before blowing gently.

"What's a wrackspurt?" Charlie could be heard muttering to Hermione.

"You don't want to know," Hermione rolled her eyes. "I was told there would be gifts if I surfaced from the depths of unconsciousness."

"Now you're nagging, too?" Ron grumbled.

"Ronald, if you give me that tone again, I'm going to hex your ears right off. And then how will you blush, hmmm?" Hermione demanded meanly.

"Grumpy in the mornings, aren't you, Granger?" Goyle smirked slyly. "And here I'd have thought you'd be in a thumping good mood after last night, eh?"

"Do you remember the time we drugged a muffin and had you beaten and left in a broom closet in only your knickers, Gregory?" Hermione asked nastily, narrowing her eyes on Goyle.

"Do you remember that time we hexed you and your teeth grew even bigger, like a beaver's?" Goyle retorted.

"I'm not above doing it again," Hermione warned him. "Never forget that."

"Are you always this friendly in the mornings, love?" Charlie asked, looking wickedly amused when Goyle flicked her the forks.

"Eat me, Weasley," Hermione said, as though forgetting that she was in company.

Molly clucked her tongue disapprovingly, her eyes widening when Charlie leaned in to whisper something to Hermione. She dropped her egg-flip when she distinctly heard her son mutter; "I already did, upstairs."

"Presents, everyone!" Arthur called just as Molly gasped in shock, turning in scandalized horror.

Before she could say anything, Charlie looped his arm around Hermione's shoulders and steered her toward the living room, leaving Molly standing there gobsmacked.

 **~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~**

Charlie couldn't help but laugh as he watched Hermione slowly come alive the more coffee she ingested. He was no soft kitten first thing in the morning, himself, but she was something else entirely. She actually emitted a low sound like a growl when Victoire had shrieked in delight at one of her Christmas gifts. Coaxing her into the land of pleasantness and manners was a marathon that involved more than one cup of coffee, and several gifts before she even cracked a smile.

It amused him to no end.

After all their presents had been exchanged and ripped open – leaving the living room a war-zone of wrapping paper, ribbon, and random individual piles of each person's loot – they'd all returned to the kitchen to dive into the enormous breakfast Mum had cooked. It was clear to Charlie that his siblings all had their suspicions about just what kind of sleepover he and Hermione had indulged in, and he was surprised at their lack of teasing.

"Suppose we ought to change into real clothes," Bill said after breakfast had been devoured and there were all leaning back into their chairs sporting contentedly full bellies and sleepy smiles.

"It's too cold for real clothes," Ron grumbled, apparently content in his flannels and his bath-robe.

"Me and Hermione have to run a quick errand from her clinic," Charlie announced. "Better get dressed."

"What errand?" Harry wanted to know.

"Its bloody Christmas. I think it can wait," Ron argued.

"Why do you need to help?" Ginny asked nosily.

"Is everything alright?" Luna asked, frowning.

Hermione – who'd been given an ungodly stack of books for Christmas – wasn't even listening. She'd retreated from the kitchen table and into an armchair in view of the table where she'd curled up and begun to read.

Charlie looked in her direction for a long moment, wondering if she was going to answer her friends or if it would fall to him. She didn't look up, turning the page in her book and reading on.

"It can't wait," Charlie informed. "And Harry, I think it might be best if you come along to the clinic with us."

Harry frowned seriously.

"What's happened?" he asked, clearly sensing his presence would be in his capacity as an Auror.

"Someone's trying to get Hermione killed," Charlie said gruffly, frowning.

"What?!" Harry growled.

"They better think again," Ron threatened, his eyes narrowing.

"Who?" Ginny demanded.

"Hermione! What's happened?"

Hermione looked over at the sound of her name.

"Any of you know what Frostfangs dragons are?" Charlie asked, raising one eyebrow at his family as they all listened in earnest now.

"Dragons, obviously," Ginny said, rolling her eyes.

"Dragons with the ability to end the world," Luna said, her expression shrewd. "This blizzard isn't natural, is it? I told Daddy that it wasn't."

"The night before last someone dumped a crate of twelve Frsotfang eggs into Hermione's care and Disapparated," Charlie told them, recapping the story Hermione had shared with him quickly.

"But those are terribly difficult to obtain," Luna pointed out. "Why would anyone go to the trouble of stealing them, only to give them to Hermione?"

"Because the sentence for being in possession of even one Frostfang egg is the Dementor's Kiss," Harry answered grimly. "Without a license, Hermione would be arrested on suspicion of trafficking, and for acts of magical terrorism. I remember reading the laws on that for my Auror exams."

"Bloody hell," Ron said. "Hermione, are you alright? Who've you pissed off?"

Hermione sighed.

"Anyone who takes issue with my Foundation, I'd imagine," she answered, rising to her feet and crossing the kitchen to set her mug in the sink.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Harry frowned at her.

"I didn't realise what they were. When the chap approached me as I was locking up and dumped them on me, I thought he must've been a backyard breeder who didn't know what to do with some ill-gotten eggs. I mistook them for Swedish Shortsnout eggs and almost cooked the lot of them, actually. When I was telling Charlie about them last night – thinking he might be able to take them to the Romanian reserve when he returns – he set me straight on what they were and how dangerous it was to be in possession of them."

"What do we do?" Ron asked. "Blimey, Hermione, you could be in big trouble. Harry, mate, this all strictly off-record, yeah?"

"'Course it bloody is," Harry rolled his eyes.

"I've filled out all the paperwork," Charlie waved away their concerns. "I'm licensed to keep them and signed a bunch of forms at Hermione's clinic. But we've got to get them back to their nest on the Frostfang Sanctuary today, or this blizzard will never end."

"Bloody hell," Ron muttered.

"Did you recognize the bloke who dumped them on you, Granger?" Goyle asked.

Hermione shook her head. "He was tall. A bit shorter than Charlie. But other than that, he had his hood up and it was dark. He shoved the crate into my arms and Disapparated straight away. To be perfectly honest, I thought it was a Death Eater attack when he first loomed out of the darkness."

Goyle nodded, while the others all looked horrified. It was no secret that despite Harry's efforts in the MLE, there were still a few Death Eaters who'd managed to evade persecution all this time.

"Tall and skinny?" Goyle asked. "Or built like me."

He rose to his feet, pulling the hood of his bathrobe up over his head and looming over her a little.

"A bit wirier than you," Hermione said speculatively, looking him up and down. "Shorter than you, too."

"Did he say anything? Would you recognize his voice?"

Hermione shook her head. "He didn't speak, just shoved the box at me. I had to catch it or drop it. He wasn't sticking around to hold it up if I fumbled."

"Who've you pissed off the most, recently?" Ron asked, and Charlie noticed that he looked like he thought Hermione pissed people off quite often.

"No one in particular," Hermione said, frowning.

"Yeah, right," Ron rolled his eyes.

"There are a lot of folk put out about your clinic, Granger," Goyle said, pushing his hood back off his head and crossing his arms over his chest. "A lot of people with deep pockets had an interest in seeing that Bill of Harvest passed. Even my Mum was ranting about it a while back, furious about the idea of werewolves and vampires skulking about so close to Diagon Alley."

"As though she doesn't spend half her time in Knockturn Alley, herself?" Hermione asked meanly.

Goyle's left eye twitched.

"To be honest, I'm surprised no one's tried something like this to get you shut down before now," Goyle told her. "My mum isn't the only one who thinks ill of you for your Foundation."

"This isn't the first time someone's tried different things to scare me off or close me down," Hermione rolled her eyes. "There've been others. Picketers. Hexers. Someone owled me a crate full of dead puppies a few months ago. Close to the full moons, some of the other businesspeople who own shops in Knockturn Alley howl when they see me coming. One threw a bucket of blood over me a while ago, saying I'd make perfect vampire bait, and then they'd see if I still wanted to help those ' _bloodsucking leeches'._ No one's ever gone so far as to dump illegal dragon eggs into my care before, but it's not the first incident I've had since opening."

"Your clinic is in Knockturn Alley?" Charlie asked, frowning at her. "Hermione, it's dodgy down there."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"It is," she agreed. "And it's where a good sixty percent of my patients wash up. You don't see the werewolves and the vampires in Diagon Alley, do you? No, they skulk in the shadows and live on the fringes until I get hold of them and give them access to a better life."

"Doesn't it affect legitimate magizoologist business if people have to venture into Knockturn Alley to see you?" Charlie asked.

Hermione gave a low and somewhat mean laugh.

"When they might get to see 'that celebrity, Hermione Granger, the girl who helped take down Voldemort'?" she asked. "Most of them imagine that if I've setup shop in a place like Knockturn Alley, it must be safe, now. I'm not the only non-dodgy shop-owner down there anymore. The MLE have cleared out a lot of the rabble, and those businesses still in operation might still deal in the Darker Arts, but they're regulated, and their trade is legal. A fair chunk of the stigma has washed away since the war and the frequent raids that shut down all the bad stops."

"It's true," Fred piped up. "There's a few café's and a pub opened up down there, and I heard there's going to be a new bookshop going into the empty shop across from Hermione's clinic. A beauty salon opened up a few months back, and I think there's an Apothecary next you now, isn't there, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded. "It's slowly being reclaimed by legitimate tradespeople. I heard Honeydukes might be taking the empty shop four doors down from mine – opening a secondary location. If that happens, the Alley will be flooded with families, and then the Ministry will have to weed out the last of the troublemakers."

"You'll never get rid of some of them," Goyle shook his head. "Borgin and Burke's is still there. And the Crooked Wand will always be a dirty brothel. Last I spoke to Malfoy, he was thinking of buying the old block on the corner down by Mulciber's."

"I've been trying to figure out what that building is for ages," Hermione frowned, turning to Goyle at the announcement. "It's all boarded up and well-warded, but I often see people coming and going from there."

Goyle's mouth twitched like he wanted to sneer that she'd never know, but he didn't.

"Probably best you don't know what that place is, Granger," he said quietly. "Don't reckon you'd take too kindly to it."

"Why?" Hermione demanded, scowling.

Harry sighed.

"It's a… boxing ring, among other things," Harry told her.

"Wizards box?" Hermione frowned.

"He means it's a pit fighting ring, Hermione," Bill told her. "The Gringotts Goblins are fond of it. Those shadows your werewolves and your vampires lurk in tend to originate from there, I'd reckon. I've been there once or twice. It's… not a nice place."

"A pit fight?" she demanded. "As in, they take magical creatures there and pit them against each other? Some sick bastards are conducting that kind of slavery and abuse just down the street from me?"

"It's now slavery," Goyle shook his head. "Believe me, the Ministry's been trying to shut them down for years. Everyone who steps into one of those pits to fight does it of his own free will."

"What are you saying?" Hermione asked.

"That some blokes like a good duel where there are no rules," Bill said grimly. "Some creatures, too. You've got to remember, Hermione, that creatures like goblins might be clever as they come, but they're mean and they're bloodthirsty, too. They didn't fight all those wars without a deep instinct to rip each other limb from limb, you know. And they're not the only ones. A lot of the werewolves in the wizarding world jump at the chance to rip the shit out of each other. Claws, fangs, you name it. There're no rules down there. Before the war and the Ministry got hold of them again, there wasn't even a rule against non-human creatures killing each other."

"What?" Hermione gasped, looking horrified.

"No one cares if a pair of goblins beat each other to death, Granger," Goyle told her. "Especially if they enter into the fight willingly. Who cares if two vampires slaughter each other? Who doesn't want to watch two werewolves rip each other to bits? On full moon nights, fighters go into the cage and it gets locked. You wouldn't believe how much money people will pay to watch a pair of werewolves kill each other when they're guaranteed to remain safe beyond the bars. Malfoy says it's one of the most lucrative businesses around. Course, all your laws prevent 'em from killing each other anymore, but tranquilizers are cheap and the crowd still pay big to be that close to a werewolf on the full moon."

Hermione was shaking her head from side to side, her eyes narrowed hatefully and her lips pressed together in a tight line.

"Why would anyone enter into that willingly?" Ginny was frowning.

"Money," Bill told her. "Contestants both get a paycheck, and the winner gets a decent pot of galleons. Most of the people down there are hard up for luck, fresh out of cash, or just in it for the blood. They have to be willing. There are wards on the place to prevent anyone entering under duress. But if they're desperate enough for the money, or just a good fight, they're allowed in."

"This takes place right down the street from my Foundation?" she demanded.

"Mmmm," Goyle nodded. "Told you that you wouldn't want to know."

"The werewolves who show up on the doorstep of my clinic first thing after a full moon, in need of being patched up?" Hermione asked.

"Probably the previous night's entertainment from inside the cage," Goyle nodded.

Charlie frowned, noting Hermione' thunderstruck expression. Her eyes narrowed to deadly slits and a crackle of purple magic fizzed through her curls, her lips pursing angrily and her hands curling into fists.

"Is that right?" she asked tightly.

"'Fraid so," Goyle nodded, not looking in the slightest repentant about telling her and upsetting her.

"I've tried to shut them down, Hermione," Harry offered. "Unfortunately, what they do is currently still legal, even with the laws in place that you wrote to protect magical creatures like the werewolves and vampires. Unfortunately, if they _want_ to fight and both parties enter into it willingly, it falls under the Sports and Recreation department's jurisdiction. A bit like muggle boxing and martial arts."

"So, a good number of the creatures turning up at my door bloody and beaten did so for money, of their own free will, and then they come to me hoping for sympathy? That's what you're telling me?"

"Not so thrilled about being in the health service business now, eh, Granger?" Goyle said, smirking. "Doesn't make you feel quite so good about yourself to be patching someone up for things they did to themselves, does it?"

More magic crackled through Hermione's curls.

"I'm going home," she announced. "I need to change."

Charlie frowned worriedly, not at all liking the way she looked ready to rip someone limb from limb, herself.

She didn't say anything else before turning on her heels, collecting her gifts, and climbing through the Floo.

"Did you have to tell her about The Ring?" Ron asked, shooting a somewhat annoyed sideways glance at his boyfriend.

"She was going to figure it out sooner or later," Goyle shrugged defensively. "Malfoy's serious about buying it and turning it into something that will draw a bigger crowd and earn an even bigger profit. With her clinic just down the road, she had a right to know."

"Yeah, well," Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'd reckon you'd better let Malfoy know that he'll have some competition for buying it."

Goyle frowned.

"You want it?" he asked.

Harry laughed meanly.

"Not me," he shook his head.

"Hermione," Ron sighed. "She'll buy it out from under him and shut it down. She'll dissemble the place brick by bloody brick with her bare hands if she thinks it'll be to the benefit of her precious creatures."

"She doesn't have that kind of cash," Goyle rolled his eyes.

"Oh, she does," Ron grumbled, shaking his head. "Her parents are from old money, and her Gran left her everything when she passed. Hermione's probably got more money than you."

"Even if that's true, she won't have more than Malfoy," Goyle argued. "He'll pay big to get his hands on that place."

"As though Hermione isn't in a position to wrap Malfoy around her little finger and make him do whatever she wants, even if he does buy it?" Ron challenged, raising one eyebrow at his boyfriend.

Goyle narrowed his eyes a little.

"What do you know about it?" he asked suspiciously.

"What does anyone know about it, if they want to keep from being hexed by either Hermione or Malfoy?" Ron countered.

Charlie narrowed his eyes, listening intently and wondering what it was they were referring to. The obvious seemed, well… too obvious… and Hermione had said that she hadn't slept with anyone in three years. Had she lied to him, thinking it might be what he wanted to hear? Had she claimed a lack of recent attention to make him feel better about the long dry-spells in his own love life thanks to his job? Was she just toying with him?

Worse; was there something going on between her and Malfoy?

Charlie opened his mouth to ask that very question, but before he could, Bill nudged his shoulder.

"Come on, little brother," he muttered, grinning a little bit. "Better get dressed and deal with those dragons, yeah?"

Charlie glanced over at his older brother, frowning and not wanting to vacate the conversation right at that second. Before he could say as much, he caught sight of the expression on Bill's face. Charlie knew it from a lifetime of brotherhood and friendship with the man. That look said no argument would be brooked, and that they needed to discuss something not fit for everyone else's ears.

Scowling, Charlie got to his feet and followed his brother out of the kitchen, his mind burning with questions.


End file.
